Clark County Detention Center
Clark, Nevada
Prison Health Services
May 4, 2004
The death of Karl Robert Kurfis was caused by the
denial of his HIV medication while in the Clark County Detention Center,
attorney Robert Langford said during opening arguments in a federal trial
Monday. A lawsuit originally filed on Kurfis'
behalf and now listing his mother as the plaintiff seeks $10 million in
punitive damages from Metro Police and Prison Health Services Inc., the
medical contractor for the Clark County Detention Center. "Karl Kurfis died because of a system that does not care about
the detainees who arrive and get sick at the Clark County Detention
Center," Langford said. "This trial is about a system that isn't
working. A system that does not provide medical care to citizens when they
are detained at the detention center." Bruce Alverson,
representing the defendants in the case, who also include former Sheriff
Jerry Keller and Dr. Harvey Hoffman, the jail's medical director, countered
that Kurfis did not die because of mistreatment at
the jail, but because of his own unwillingness to take his medication.
"The plaintiff refused to take his HIV medication," Alverson said. "Why? Because he abused
methamphetamine and it has been shown that drug abusers lack the
responsibility to take care of themselves." Kurfis,
34, died on June 3, 2002, of a strain of pneumonia that often attacks AIDS
patients. Kurfis had been arrested in February 2000
on a burglary charge, and was held until September of that year. Kurfis only received his HIV medication for 14 days
during the incarceration, Langford said. (Las Vegas Sun)

November 19, 2003The
family of a French citizen who died in a videotaped struggle with Las Vegas
jail guards has settled a federal lawsuit against the jail's health care
provider, according to a relative and the American Civil Liberties Union.The
undisclosed settlement between the family of Philippe LeMenn,
33, and Prison Health Services Inc., was the last of a series of civil
lawsuits stemming from LeMenn's death in January
2001."Nothing can compensate the family for the tragic
loss of their son, but we hope this gives them some sense of relief and a
small measure of justice,"said Gary Peck,
executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. The ACLU
acted as co-counsel for the family.Peck said the
Oct. 29 settlement with the health care company, combined with a $500,000
settlement in July with Las Vegas police, illustrated the cost of providing
substandard inmate care at the county jail in Las Vegas. The ACLU acted as
co-counsel for the family.Lawyers for LeMenn's
family had alleged that Prison Health Services psychiatrists and
psychologists failed to identify LeMenn's mental
health problems when he was booked into the Clark County Detention Center.
Lawyers for the company, based in Brentwood, Tenn., could not immediately be
reached for comment.The ACLU alleged that the case
highlighted a chronic lack of care for mentally ill inmates at the jail.The case
against Las Vegas police, who administer the jail, claimed wrongful death,
battery and negligent supervision and training of guards.A Clark
County coroner ruled that LeMenn died of
asphyxiation due to restraint. A coroner's inquest cleared the nine
corrections officers videotaped struggling to subdue the 275-pound man.Philip
Moreau, LeMenn's cousin, said he had wanted the
jail, guards and administrators held responsible for his cousin's death. He
said he disagreed with the family's decision to settle, and did not know the
settlement amount."I wanted them to be punished
publicly, not under the table,"Moreau said by
telephone from his home in West Los Angeles, Calif.LeMenn, a restaurant
manager, had been arrested by Clark County School District police on charges
of disorderly conduct, annoying a minor and causing a disturbance on school
property.Police said he grabbed a child and banged on a school
bus before he was taken to jail. (Reno Gazette-Journal)

Las Vegas Community CorrectionalLas
Vegas, Nevada
GEO GroupApr 4, 2015 reviewjournal.comA former prison inmate claims he suffered a minor stroke and
nearly died after he was deprived of blood pressure medication for an
extended period of time at a halfway house in Las Vegas. Oscar Corado, 33, made the allegation in a lawsuit he filed
last year in Clark County District Court against The GEO Group Inc., which
operates the Las Vegas Community Correctional Center on Industrial Road. On
Thursday, the defendant’s attorneys moved the case to federal court.
According to the lawsuit, Corado spent about 28
months at a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., where the medical staff
diagnosed him with hypertension and placed him on prescription medication to
control the condition. In October 2012, Corado was
transferred to the halfway house in Las Vegas to finish the remainder of his
sentence. His lawsuit claims the staff at the correctional center stopped
providing Corado with his medication and “ignored
his medical needs for over a month.” On Nov. 7, 2012, staff at the halfway
house gave Corado his medication for the first
time, according to the lawsuit. Later that day, he began having chest pains
and dizziness. He was taken to Valley Hospital Medical Center, where “his
medical providers opined that the reintroduction of the medication following
the deprivation had caused what had amounted to a minor stroke,” the lawsuit
alleges. As a result, according to the document, Corado
incurred significant medical bills and nearly died. The defendant’s lawyers
could not be reached for comment Friday.

CARSON CITY,
Nev. (AP) — The Nevada Supreme Court has upheld a $1 million verdict against
a security firm accused of not doing enough to prevent the fatal attack of a
man in a crime-riddled Las Vegas Wal-Mart parking lot. The high court on Friday
declined to grant a new trial to private security firm Wackenhut in the death
of 51-year-old Michael Born. The retired Air Force major had been changing
his car’s headlight in the parking lot in 2004 when Raymond Garrett punched
him. Born later died of his injuries. Lawyers for Born’s
relatives argued in 2011 that Wackenhut should have been more vigilant in
protecting customers at the store on Nellis and
Charleston. Attorneys said police were called to the store an average of
three times a day prior to the attack.

February 16, 2011 The
Street
After fiery closing arguments in the Smith v. Walmart
trial, a jury found Wackenhut, but not Wal-Mart(WMT),
liable for inadequate security in a store parking lot where a customer was
murdered. The jury awarded over $1M in damages. Michael Born was murdered in
a Wal-Mart parking lot while replacing his car's headlight. The plaintiffs
claimed that Wal-Mart knew the store was located in a high-crime area, and
that police were repeatedly called to the site. However, neither Wal-Mart nor
its hired security service, Wackenhut, took adequate measures to protect
Wal-Mart customers. Plaintiff attorney Mont Tanner reminded the jury that
there had been more than a hundred similar incidents of serious crimes at the
store, such as battery and robbery, most within the two years prior to the
murder. However, said Tanner, there was no annual security assessment at this
"crime magnet" by either Wal-Mart or Wackenhut, and the Wackenhut
patrol officer was not trained to identify or deal with suspicious persons.
Wal-Mart also allegedly failed to comply with its own security guidelines.

Lincoln County, Nevada
Western CorrectionJune
25, 2000 The Independent
The scramble in the US for the rich rewards to be made out of the private
prison sector is leaving a trail of individual investors feeling as if their
pockets have been picked. Many prisons stand empty, with private investors
holding worthless bonds - a salient warning for those on this side of the
Atlantic who are advocating greater involvement by the private sector in our
penal system. The scramble in the US for the rich rewards to be made out of
the private prison sector is leaving a trail of individual investors feeling
as if their pockets have been picked. Many prisons stand empty, with private
investors holding worthless bonds - a salient warning for those on this side
of the Atlantic who are advocating greater involvement by the private sector
in our penal system. The demand for more space is far outpacing the building
of new US jails, so a for-profit prison looked like a sure thing for many New
York investors. But, after similar scandals in Florida and Texas, the
problems of a small prison in Nevada are shaking investors' confidence and
raising questions about whether profit can be made from felons. The investors
eagerly snapped up the tax-free municipal bonds in the billion-dollar
rent-a-bed prison business that swept the tumbleweeds of rural America in the
1990s. Buoyed up with the initial excitement and 90 per cent returns offered
in the shady rent-a-bed prisons, Lincoln County in Nevada set to work on a
plan sold it by Western Correction, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, agent that
promotes the idea of private prisons. The plan had been proven, it heard, in
other states, and Lincoln County was eager to jump on the
prisoners-for-profit bandwagon. Building conglomerates grew up in the feeding
frenzy. Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is developing some 82 jails
with 73,000 beds in the US, the UK and Canada, and has 55 per cent of the
global private prison market. But as new technology takes over real estate as
the stock of choice in the high stakes poker game on Wall Street, prison privatisation is taking a drubbing. Last month CCA helped
remove Robert Crant, the CEO of Prison Realty Trust
(PRT) - which CCA now controls - when PRT stock dived and PRT stopped paying
dividends. Lincoln County hired a private equity company, Juran
& Moody, to issue $3.5m in tax-free bonds for a 64-bed jail. Investors
were offered the security of the lease of the land where the prison stood.
Prisoners could be traded for $30 to $50 each and if the experiment worked,
it would be expanded using prisoners from other parts of Nevada and
eventually other US states. Charles Thomas, who developed the University of
Florida's Private Prisons Project, funded by corporate donations from the
private prison sector, said: "For whatever good, bad, or indifferent
reason, there've been other privately financed facilities that couldn't make
a go of it, and so some who've invested in [them] have lost some significant
money." In Lincoln the numbers looked great and the county paid a hefty
fee in tax dollars to Juran & Moody. At $40 a
prisoner the jail would turn over a $1m a year. For the small Nevada county
whose population of 5,000 is scattered over 10,000 square miles, including a
nuclear weapons testing range, this was a windfall - and it took the bait.
The then county commissioner Ed Wright told the town hall that the profits
would go to build new sewage plants and schools. They then set about spending
most of the bondholders' money paying Salt Lake City's Layton Construction,
the state's top engineer, to build it. The prison gates opened in 1994.
Today, six years later, it still lies empty, the wind whistling through the razor
wire, tumbleweed pinioned on the chain link fence. And in an ironic twist of
fate the new county commissioner, Floyd Lamb, a former state senator who's
spent time in a federal prison for blackmail, refused to send inmates and
defaulted on the lease. Local Sheriff Dahl Bradfield was installed in the
prison with his men but they promptly left the place empty. Bondholders were
told they could have the jail back. In private hands the prison was subject
to property taxes and the bondholders still hadn't seen any return on their
investment. A for-sale sign was hammered on the door. Juran
& Moody liquidated itself and the remains of the bond transaction lie
hidden in a trust set up before the company died. If the sale goes through,
"The bondholders would be able to offset their losses against gains they
made in private equities," says Ted Brownell, a manager with the firm
that acquired Juran & Moody's assets, including
the prison. That's if they have any equities. The bondholders had watched
their 1992 investment shrink to nothing today. And Lincoln County is paying
to house prisoners in jails across the state. "That's rural small-town
politics," says a former county commissioner. The bondholders have been
given a reprieve until September to come up with back taxes before forfeiture
proceedings begin. Spring Past, a California real estate investment firm specialising in distressed properties, offered to take
the facility off their hands for $500,000. That, after the initial
investment, missed interest payments and back taxes, would have been 10 cents
on the dollar for investors. That offer was withdrawn when Spring Past
couldn't find a private firm to operate the jail. For now, bondholders,
mostly individual investors from New York, are holding paper that's never paid
a penny. It seems their best hope is for the county to buy the jail. The
county commission has discussed offering £500,000, if it can come up with the
financing - now a mute point. Dissatisfaction with the for-profit prison
spread to neighbouring Phoenix, where the
construction of a private jail was cancelled this month after the local
community's protests reached federal government, which put a stop to the
project. "When it doesn't work, the core problem tends to be that the
established for-profit prison sector isn't involved at all and that those who
are - investment bankers, real estate developers - simply don't know much
about jails," said Dr Thomas. A point worth thinking about, perhaps, for
those desperate to bring private equity into Britain's creaking prison
service.

Nevada
Department of CorrectionsOct 22, 2017
thenevadaindependent.com Transparency advocates concerned about Nevada's new partnership with
private prison, which is exempt from public records lawNevada’s plan to use private prisons to ease overcrowding in state
facilities has already been controversial on principle — Democratic lawmakers
don’t like the idea of a company profiting off incarceration. But civil
liberties advocates are raising another concern about the arrangement — that
private companies contracting with the government aren’t subject to state or
federal public records laws, potentially complicating the public’s ability to
get timely, complete information about how safely and effectively Nevada
inmates are being taken care of. “There’s really no oversight over that if
we’re not able to request that information through [the Freedom of
Information Act],” said Holly Welborn of the
American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada. “There’s no way to hold them
accountable.” Nevada Department of Corrections Chief James Dzurenda said the 200 or so inmates who will be sent to
Arizona in November through a $9.2 million, two-year contract with the
company CoreCivic will be treated with the same
standards as the nearly 14,000 inmates under Nevada’s direct supervision. The
agency also says they’ll be collecting the same information from the company
as they would about inmates in state prisons — data about inmate grievances,
disciplinary action, segregation, hospitalizations and deaths — to provide to
the governor and the Legislature. But the department has yet to release
specific reporting requirements and procedures. As of last week, spokeswoman
Brooke Keast said they were still being finalized.
The state of Hawaii, whose prisoners occupy most of the space at the Arizona
facility where Nevada inmates will go, conducts audits every three months to
ensure the prison is complying with its state contractual standards and posts
the reports online. Auditors draw from records reviews, staff and inmate
interviews and observations to fill out a detailed, 243-point checklist
covering everything from whether substance abuse counselors are certified to
whether refrigerators are maintained at the proper temperature. It’s unclear
if Nevada will take the same approach. And even if the state is collecting
the information, Welborn warned that contractors
can sometimes exploit a loophole by marking key documents as “internal,”
preventing their public release. Democratic Assemblywoman Daniele
Monroe-Moreno, a former corrections officer herself, sponsored a bill in the
2017 session that started out banning the use of private prisons and later
became a measure eliminating their use after five years. It was vetoed by
Gov. Brian Sandoval, who said he didn’t want to tie the hands of the
corrections agency when trends in the prison population are so unpredictable.
In hindsight, she says, she should have split her bill into two. In addition
to the more controversial ban, the bill set reporting requirements for any
outside prisons companies the state works with, mandating data about the
makeup of the prison population, their discipline and how many were
participating in rehabilitation programming, and requiring biannual, on-site
inspections of private prisons to ensure compliance with a contract. “I will
be staying on top of that,” Monroe-Moreno said. “Whether it’s mandated or
not, [Dzurenda] seems to be in agreement with me
and others that that information is vitally important.” Corrections officials
have sounded a desperate plea to get relief from out-of-state as they
struggle with a stubbornly high staff vacancy rate and cramped quarters.
There were 13,683 inmates in the system as of mid-October, which is hundreds
more people than beds, and several wings of Nevada prisons will be going out
of commission soon for major repairsand upgrades. “We have 322 inmates today that are not sleeping or
being housed in traditional bed areas,” Dzurenda
told the Board of Examiners on Oct. 10, when they approved the CoreCivic contract. “Those inmates go into day room
areas, program areas that we make appropriate housing for, but it takes away
program space that we know is going to help get these inmates back into
society much better than they came in.” The pleas for funding for private prison
space were met with skepticism in the Democratic-controlled Legislature,
which only authorized money for 200 inmates to be sent out of state rather
than the 400 the agency requested. Dzurenda
expressed some regret that the state had to resort to the private solution at
all. “It’s unfortunate that the state has to even look at this today,” he
told the board. But he suggested that the state could be better off if it’s
able to send away the worst bullies and bad apples, relieving inmates who
truly want to change. The agency plans to prioritize inmates who are
“identified with strategic threat groups,” are having disciplinary issues or
are not originally from Nevada as the first to move, although Dzurenda said he won’t be transferring people with
serious mental illness. “I think it’s important if I make a pact with our
staff that we’re not going to tolerate this. We’re not going to tolerate any
of this behavior by these inmates,” Dzurenda said.
“If they want to partake in gang activity, if they want to disrupt the
operation of our facilities, they will find themselves going to Arizona where
I can create a better environment here in Nevada for those that really do
need the help to get back in the community.” While this marks Nevada’s first
time working with a private prison, the practice is done at a higher rate at
the federal level. About 18 percent of federal prisoners (34,900 inmates) are
housed in a contract prison, while about 7 percent of state prisoners (91,300
inmates) were in private facilities in 2015. Private operators such as CoreCivic also run many detention centers for Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE), including the 1,072-bed Nevada Southern
Detention Center in Pahrump. Almost three quarters of federal immigration
detainees are in private facilities. “We appreciate Nevada’s trust in CoreCivic to provide them a high quality, flexible
solution to their current needs,” said Jonathan Burns, a spokesman for the
company, which was the only one to submit a bid to serve Nevada. “CoreCivic has more than 30 years of experience providing
safe, secure and humane correctional services and effective reentry
programming to diverse correctional populations. We are confident our
state-of-the-art facility, combined with CoreCivic’s
deep experience managing a wide range of inmates, will lead to a successful
partnership.” But the world of private prisons hasn’t all been rosy,
according to a report from the Department of Justice’s inspector general in
2016 that compared 14 private prisons with 14 federally run prisons. It found
that from fiscal years 2011 through 2014, the private facilities had more
contraband, reports of incidents, lockdowns, inmate discipline, telephone
monitoring and grievances than the public facilities. The private facilities
performed better in drug testing and sexual misconduct, auditors found. The
inspector general’s office recommended closer oversight of the facilities,
including more frequent verification that inmates are receiving basic medical
services, periodically validating whether the actual staffing levels are
meeting the agreed-upon levels and ensuring that monitoring steps yield
meaningful information. Under the Obama Administration, the tide turned
against the use of private prisons. In August 2016, then-Deputy Attorney
General Sally Yates directed the Bureau of Prisons not to renew or
substantially reduce the scope of private prison contracts as they expire.
Current Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the memo this February,
saying it impaired the bureau’s ability to respond to future needs. Now some
lawmakers are asking for more insight into the contract facilities’
operations. Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin introduced a bill in August that would
require private prisons to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
“Private prisons account for 20 percent of our federal prison and detention
population but hide behind loopholes in the law when it comes to how they
perform their job on behalf of the American people,” Cardin said about the
measure, which has the support of open government groups but has no
co-sponsors. Barry Smith, director of the Nevada Press Association, agrees.
He believes any contract outsourcing state functions to a private company
should explicitly state that all records remain under the ownership and
control of the government, thus making them public records. “Private
companies doing the work of a government agency should still be subject to
the same open-records requirements as the government itself,” Smith said. “In
the case of a prison, it should be obvious that everything a contractor does
is acting in the role of the Department of Corrections. We can’t have secret
jails or a shadow justice system. It has to be an open book.” Dzurenda said he and NDOC’s director of programs visited
the Arizona facility, which is located in Eloy —
halfway between Tucson and Phoenix. The 1,896-bed prison was built mainly for
inmates from Hawaii because it’s cheaper than keeping them on the islands, and the facility observes Hawaiian traditions and
holidays including King Kamehameha Day. “It was
important for us to see that so I can feel comfortable that they will be
receiving the services that we asked for, but also that we’re not going to
reduce any of the services for these offenders, for reentry back into the
community when that point comes,” said Dzurenda. He
noted that the prison is accredited by the American Correctional
Administration, which he said conducts audits to ensure the treatment,
programs, grievance process and out of cell time meet standards. “And you’re
100 percent … that they will be treated the same as if they were in Nevada?”
Sandoval asked at the Board of Examiners meeting. “That is correct,” Dzurenda answered. Monroe-Moreno didn’t get to check out
the Arizona facility on Dzurenda’s recent tour. But
she said she plans to do so moving forward, and wants the state to work on
getting an unvarnished picture of how the private company is handling the
public’s wards. “When you have company coming, everything is shiny and new,”
she said. “I think we need more unannounced visits … sometimes that’s a logistical nightmare but that’s when you find out
the truth.”

Nevada LegislatureDec 27, 2017
luxoraleader.com Assemblywoman wants to ban private prisons in NevadaThere was no opposition to a proposed ban on private prisons in Nevada
when the bill came before a committee of lawmakers this morning.
Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D-North Las Vegas, is amending the bill
to bring down the anticipated price tag of almost $85 million and to give the
prison system time to transition. A retired corrections officer,
Monroe-Moreno said Monday that she’s seen the need for improved services and
criminal justice reforms. “The use of for-profit prisons can be a temporary fix
if necessary, but it is not the ultimate fix for the overcrowding issues and
other problems that we have in our criminal justice system,” she said.
Monroe-Moreno said for-profit prisons are a big business. “It kind of
incentivizes having people be incarcerated more often, having longer
sentences,” she said. The Nevada Department of Corrections estimated the cost
of the original version of Assembly Bill 303 and said it would be unable to
meet the proposed requirements with current resources. The $85 million
estimate attached to the original bill took several issues into account, such
as new construction and the potential lease of an alternate facility in North
Las Vegas. Monroe-Moreno said the amended version largely eliminates that
estimated cost. Nevada’s one for-profit facility is a federal prison in
Pahrump that Monroe-Moreno said the Legislature cannot control. The bill
requires that state and local prisons, jails and detention facilities fall
under the direct operational control of the state or a local government.
Members of the Assembly’s Corrections, Parole and Probation Committee heard
support for the bill from corrections officials and public defenders, among
others. Department of Corrections Director James Dzurenda
said there were almost 600 inmates sleeping in unconventional housing, such
as day rooms and program rooms. Gov. Brian Sandoval’s recommended budget
requests that 200 inmates be housed out of state due to crowding and needed
repairs in an uninhabitable part of Southern Desert Correctional Center. The
Corrections Department’s fiscal note says the original bill would have
prevented that. Monroe-Moreno said the amended bill would temporarily house
those inmates out of state while repairs are made. “We’ve come to a happy
medium between what they need and what I’d like to see,” she said. Two
buildings need to be repaired. Monroe-Moreno said she’s been told the work
would take two years for each, and the inmates would be moved back in state
as soon as the facilities are ready. “Once we’re able to get them back in,
we’ll have refurbished facilities but we’ll also have more programming to
help with the behavioral health care issues and education issues once they
come back,” she said. Less employee training and higher turnover are some of
the issues seen in some for-profit prisons, said Nicole Porter, of the
Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project, a nonprofit advocacy group. “With
AB 303, Nevada lawmakers have an opportunity to codify the practice of
incarcerating no state prisoners in private prison,” Porter said. Assemblyman
Keith Pickard said people hear about the same kinds of problem outcomes in
the public prison system as well. Porter said overpopulation issues can
contribute to issues within prisons while also contributing to the need for
for-profit facilities. Keeping in mind the prisoners being transferred out of
state, Pickard asked for an analysis of institutions that are run well.
“We’re talking about a mixed bag of results,” he said. “I’m wondering if then
there are best practices.” If passed, the provisions in the bill would take
effect in July. A sunset clause would give prisons five years to transition.

Jun 14, 2017
lasvegassun.com Sandoval vetoes proposed ban on private prisonsAssembly Bill 303 is among more than two dozen measures to be vetoed.
Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D-North Las Vegas, sponsored the
proposed private prison ban, and worked with stakeholders to amend the
measure to allow agencies until 2022 to make the transition. Sandoval cited
executive authority in his veto message.. “To the
extent that the intent of AB303 is to ensure that Nevada maintains complete
control over its prisons and prison population, there is some merit to the
bill,” Sandoval said. “But because the bill improperly encroaches on the
authority and discretion of the executive branch of state government,
including the State Board of Prison Commissioners, I cannot support it.” He
said the bill goes too far by limiting the discretion of the Department of
Corrections director to use private prisons when overcrowding or other issues
make these facilities necessary. He also cited the high costs of building
more facilities. “Between now and 2022, much can happen, and there is no way
to predict whether private prisons may need to play a critical part in
Nevada's future prison needs,” Sandoval said. Monroe-Moreno said on Twitter
that the governor’s decision was disappointing, and that she has no intention
of ending her work on this issue.

May 31, 2017
lasvegassun.com Bill banning private prisons in Nevada reaches final versionA proposed private prison ban is in its final version and making its way
toward a Senate vote with days left before the legislative session ends.
Assembly Bill 303 came up for a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on
Tuesday. Assemblywoman Daniele Monroe-Moreno, D-North Las Vegas, is
sponsoring the measure and says she expects it to reach Gov. Brian Sandoval’s
desk in its current form. Monroe–Moreno worked with Nevada Department of
Corrections Director James Dzurenda to amend the bill,
giving officials enough time to deal with overcrowded facilities and needed
repairs. A retired corrections officer, Monroe–Moreno says two facilities
need work. She said the Southern Desert Correctional Center segregation unit
will be refurbished and the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson
City needs to be made compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The
Nevada Department of Corrections estimated that the original bill would have
cost tens of millions of dollars to implement. The current version allows
Nevada to continue sending inmates out of state through the Interstate
Compact for Adult Offenders for five years. “So by allowing five years that
gave them enough time to get both facilities to where they needed to be for
our citizens to live in and to work in,” Monroe-Moreno said. Dzurenda told the Senate committee Monday that the hope
is to get inmates back into the state. He said contracts will ensure
out-of-state inmates have the same offerings as Nevada prisoners.
Monroe-Moreno said that prisoners sent out of state during the five years
could end up in a state facility or for-profit prison. She said using that
tool temporarily will allow the state to make its facilities humane for the
people who live and work there. “The five-year window gave enough leeway time
for that to happen,” Monroe-Moreno said. “As the director said, it’s his hope
to bring everyone back in.” Dzurenda said Tuesday
that 200 inmates need to be removed almost immediately from the portion of
the Southern Nevada facility that will be refurbished. “The building
foundation is cracking and there’s some sewage
issues,” he said. This refurbishment will cost about $10 million, Dzurenda said, hitting areas needing immediate
improvements. He also said officials are in the planning stages for new
dormitories at the Carson City facility. Monroe-Moreno said banning private
prisons sends a message that the state has tried this method before and
doesn’t want to go down that path again. The Southern Nevada Women’s
Correctional Facility was operated by the Corrections Corporation of America
when the Nevada Department of Corrections’ inspector general was made aware
of substandard supervision and medical treatment of inmates. Nevada’s state
prisons are not currently run by any for-profit industries. “I may not be in
the Legislature 20 years from now and we want to make sure that the next
generations of leaders know that we’ve ... learned from this,” Monroe-Moreno
said. The goal is to avoid overcrowding issues that the state is facing now,
Monroe-Moreno said. “Hopefully we don’t have this overcrowding problem again,
but that is a bigger issue than the for-profit prison,” she said after
Tuesday’s hearing. “It’s working on their parole, and parole hearings, and
probation and making sure that the first order of business when someone
messes up is not to put them right back into prison but to look at what those
wraparound issues were that caused them to mess up.” In its current form, the
bill passed a 38-3 Assembly vote on May 24 and was sent to the Senate.
Members of the judiciary committee who heard the bill Tuesday need to approve
the bill before the full Senate can consider whether to send it to the
governor. The last day of the 120-day session is June 5.Apr 5, 2017
reviewjournal.com Assembly bill will bar for-profit prison operators in NevadaCARSON CITY — For-profit companies that run prisons may get locked out of
doing business in Nevada. Assembly Bill 303, heard Tuesday by the Committee
on Corrections, Parole and Probation, would forbid local jails and state
prisons from contracting with private companies for so-called core services.
Those services, which include housing, security and discipline of inmates,
would have to be provided by state or local government employees. Government agencies
would be allowed to contract with private vendors for support services, such
as food service, medical support and janitorial work. Assemblywoman Daniele
Monroe-Moreno, D-North Las Vegas, said the bill is needed to avoid problems
associated with the for-profit prison industry. Monroe-Moreno, a primary
sponsor of the bill, also said the private prisons’ business model runs
contrary to the goals of a corrections system: to rehabilitate inmates and
reduce recidivism. “If the point of a prison is to ensure justice and provide
for the welfare of our citizens, then the use of for-profit prisons is
entirely defective,” said Monroe-Moreno, a retired North Las Vegas
corrections officer. The legislation was amended Tuesday to enable the Nevada
Department of Corrections to contract with private companies to house inmates
out of state. That amendment is intended to give the agency flexibility to
deal with overcrowding. Department of Corrections Director James Dzurenda said the state prison system is facing overcrowding,
forcing officials to place about 600 inmates in unconventional housing areas.
Officials also need to renovate a unit of Southern Desert Correctional Center
north of Las Vegas; that work will necessitate the transfer of about 200
inmates. There is no room to place the inmates elsewhere in the system, so
moving them temporarily to a private out-of-state facility is likely, he
said. The bill requires any private correctional facility that contracts with
Nevada to meet state standards and face biannual compliance audits. That
exception in the law would sunset after five years, giving the state
Department of Corrections time to complete the renovation. No one spoke in
opposition to the bill. The committee did not take immediate action on it
Tuesday. Nevada’s experiences with private prisons has
been checkered. In 1997, Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Facility opened
under the management of the Corrections Corporation of America. Six years
later, the state uncovered numerous problems at the facility, including
inappropriate relationships between inmates and staff and substandard medical
treatment. In one instance, a male guard impregnated an inmate. The CCA,
which last year changed its name to CoreCivic, did
not renew its contract to run the facility, citing losses of more than $1
million annually. The Nevada Department of Corrections now runs the facility,
which was renamed Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center. “We do not
need to repeat the mistakes of our past,” Monroe-Moreno said.

Apr 3, 2017 kolotv.com Lawmakers considering private prison ban for Nevada inmatesCARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Nevada lawmakers this week will debate issues
ranging from private prisons and gift card expiration dates to renewable
energy and health care. The prison proposal would prohibit state and local
government agencies from incarcerating Nevada offenders in privately operated
prisons. No private prisons currently exist in Nevada. But the bill would
affect a handful of the 13,300 prisoners overseen by the state because 46 of
them are currently in private prisons outside of Nevada. Gov. Brian Sandoval
proposed this year to move 200 more people to them to relieve overcrowding.
The prison bill will be heard Tuesday.

September
21, 2008 Las Vegas SunSome state lawmakers plan to push to end local governments’ hiring of
lobbyists to represent them at the Legislature, but the Clark County
Commission last week agreed to negotiate a contract with R&R Partners to
lobby on behalf of University Medical Center. Is there a particular lobbyist
who will be working on the UMC account? Yes, a former assemblyman, Jim Spinello. He has a long history in state politics. The
year after he lost a bid for secretary of state in November 1990, he became
assistant general manager of the State Industrial Insurance System. Last
year, he was appointed chairman of a 60-member committee, Nevada Educators
for Edwards, established by then-presidential candidate John Edwards. Didn’t
the county select someone else for the lobbying job recently? The county’s
choice of R&R represents quite a change from its previous choice of J3,
the lobbying firm of Robert Uithoven, a longtime
Republican who withdrew his name from consideration in August. Democrats
dominate the commission 5-2, with Rory Reid, son of the U.S. Senate majority
leader, serving as chairman. Uithoven’s being considered for the job drew many questions. Not
only has Uithoven worked on behalf of Republican
Gov. Jim Gibbons, he argued last summer that the casino industry should be
able to obtain refunds for up to $150 million in state taxes that casinos
paid on comped meals. How much is the R&R
contract for? The amount is to be negotiated before being brought to the
commission for final approval. Who else does R&R represent? Perhaps the
better question is: Who doesn’t it represent? During the 2007 session,
lobbyists for the firm represented myriad businesses and industries including
the Andre Agassi Foundation, the Corrections Corp. of America, the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute, Medic West, Las Vegas Monorail, the
Nevada Cancer Institute, the Nevada Mining Association, the Nevada Resort
Association, Opportunity Village, Planned Parenthood, the Southern Nevada
Home Builders Association and US Airways.

Pahrump,
Nevada
CCAJun 14, 2017 reviewjournal.com Corrections employee commits suicide at Pahrump federal detention facilityA corrections employee committed suicide Tuesday at the Nevada Southern
Detention Center in Pahrump. The private detention facility, which houses federal
inmates awaiting trial, disclosed the suicide in a statement Wednesday that
said the employee “sadly took his own life.” The employee’s name and position
have not been released to the public. Detention center staff members found
his body after responding to a fire alarm that went off around 6 p.m. No fire
was discovered. Staff contacted emergency medical services, who pronounced
the employee dead at the scene. A source with knowledge of the investigation
said tear gas or some other chemical irritant was set off in the room before
the suicide. The death was the result of a gunshot wound, the source said.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and loved ones of our fellow CoreCivic colleague, as well as with the extended family
of Nevada Southern Detention Center staff,” Nevada Southern Detention Center
spokeswoman Kayla Gieni said in the statement.
“Resources are being made available to impacted employees at the facility as
they cope with the loss of a colleague.” CoreCivic,
formerly the Corrections Corporation of America, is a company that owns and
manages private prisons and detention centers throughout the country,
including the Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump. The facility
currently is housing notorious anti-federalist rancher Cliven
Bundy and his band of more than a dozen like-minded supporters who are
awaiting trial on charges resulting from the 2014 armed standoff in Bunkerville. The corrections company said it is
cooperating fully with local law enforcement as it investigates the suicide.
The Nye County Sheriff’s Office, whose jurisdiction includes Pahrump, is
investigating. The Clark County coroner’s office will determine the official
cause of death.December
21, 2011 Pahrump Valley Times
Nye County Public Works Director Dave Fanning expected to be able to go to
contract on repairing Blagg Road by the end of this
year or the start of 2012; that date has now been extended to March 1, 2012.
“We had a few things to address legally with the utility company that have
actually come to light. We’ve done that,” Fanning told the Board of Road
Commissioners Tuesday. The road commission is made up of county
commissioners. Fanning said he obtained written permission in mid-November
from a group that originally drew up plans for that job site. Fanning told
Commissioner Butch Borasky he hoped to go out for
bids the second or third week of January. It then has to go through the
district attorney’s office for review and go to the county purchasing
department. Commissioners approved a $25,000 work order with Pezonella Associates Inc. Tuesday to perform geotechnical
forensic testing of the sewer line trench for the entire section installed by
Corrections Corporation of America along Mesquite Road, Blagg
Road, Wilson Road and Big Five Road. Pezonella Associates
was already paid $125,000 by county commissioners to prepare a report on who
is at fault for the sinkholes that opened up on Blagg
Road after heavy rain last December and the collapse of two sewer lift
stations.

September
20, 2010 KLAS TV
There will be dozens more looking for work in North Las Vegas after the city
hands out layoff notices. Forty-two detention center employees and
corrections officers are being cut after the city lost a large contract. The
North Las Vegas Detention Center will see 300 of its 800 inmates transferred
to a brand new privately-run jail in Pahrump. The U.S. Marshals Service says
the Pahrump facility met their future expansion needs better, leaving North
Las Vegas without federal money to pay for local jobs. "The reduction in
population at the jail will result in about $9.7 million annually for that
facility," said North Las Vegas officer Chrissie Coon. "We're
actually looking at layoff notifications going out to 19 corrections officers
and 23 civilian personnel."

April
30, 2010 Pahrump Valley Times
While Corrections Corporation of America is close to opening an $80 million
federal detention center in Pahrump, the company chose an early termination
of their contract to operate the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center
in North Las Vegas in 2004 due to the high cost of medical care. The Nevada
Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, scheduled to begin accepting inmates in
October, is a male-only facility. CCA was awarded a 20-year contract by the
Office of the Federal Detention Trustee to build and operate the Pahrump
facility, which is up for renewal every five years. At a Jan. 28, 2004
meeting of the State Interim Finance Committee, the Nevada Department of
Corrections considered taking over inmate medical care at the women's prison
from CCA March 1 that year. But talk then expanded to the state taking over
the facility completely. Senate Bill 278, approved by the 1995 Nevada
Legislature, allocated $44 million to construct a new women's correctional
center in southern Nevada. CCA constructed a correctional facility for 550
inmates and began housing the female prisoners. The state purchased the land,
buildings and equipment from CCA on Oct. 3, 2001, with an operating contract
to remain in effect through June 30, 2015, according to minutes provided by
the research division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau. CCA was given a per
diem rate of $40.03 per inmate, which was to increase by 3 percent per year.
By 2004 that rate increased to $47.79. The contract provided for automatic
renewals every three years, with a renewal scheduled Oct. 3, 2004. CCA and
the state DOC had been in discussions over the per diem rate and the
provision of health care to the facility for three years. Nevada DOC Medical
Administrator Chuck Schardin reported CCA health
care costs increased 21 percent from $2.4 million in 2002 to almost $3
million in 2003. Off-site expenses alone nearly doubled from $589,840 to
$1.06 million. The minutes show a dramatic reduction of inmates from
projected numbers also caused difficulties. While the women's correctional
facility held 550 inmates at one time, there was a population of only 445
inmates in early 2003. In spring 2002, CCA alleged inmates from honor camps
with medical problems were being dumped at the women's prison. In excerpts of
the minutes from the Jan. 28, 2004, meeting, Tony Grande, CCA vice-president
for state relations, said, "Continuing the contract would be exceedingly
difficult if CCA was not able to remedy the costs related to medical services
being provided at SNWCF." Dr. Ted D'Amico, medical director for the
state DOC, is quoted in March 31, 2004, as saying: "CCA had struggled
with the medical care of inmates from the start because of their inability to
hire good administrators." The intake process at the correctional
facility required assistance from the Nevada DOC during a year in which the
medical director's budget absorbed nearly $300,000 of medical care costs,
D'Amico said. CCA had problems providing timely dental care to inmates, who
had to be incarcerated for six months before dental care was provided,
D'Amico said. The company provided a half-time dentist, he said. There were
also concerns about psychotropic medications and HIV program standards. John Tighe, CCA vice president of health services, was quoted
as saying bluntly, "Operating an institution housing female inmates was
not an easy task." CCA was committed to providing quality care at the
women's prison and had to fill in employment gaps, flying in staff from other
areas using temporary and agency personnel, which wasn't cost effective, Tighe said. State Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, suggested
the state assume operation of the entire facility, instead of just the
medical care. Following that discussion, CCA provided a notice of contract
termination Feb. 23, 2004, effective Oct. 1, 2004. D'Amico "commended
CCA's expertise and hard work during the length of their contract with the
state." The facility, now under state management, is now known as the
Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center.

March
3, 2010 Pahrump Valley TimesU.S. District Judge Philip Pro Monday ordered federal judges in the
Nevada district to recuse themselves from hearing a
case filed by Concerned Citizens for a Safe Community against the Office of
the Federal Detention Trustee over the detention center in Pahrump. Attorney
Nancy Lord filed a motion for a change of venue on the grounds federal judges
in Nevada were kept posted on developments of the federal detention center
being built by Corrections Corporation of America. She wanted the case moved
to U.S. District Court in California. "How would that justify change of
venue to the Central District of California? Wouldn't the sensible resolution
be to assign a judge outside the district to hear the case?" Pro asked.
"We do this all the time when we have a conflict." Lord replied,
"I didn't know that could be done, that another judge could be brought
in." She said the entire federal bench in Nevada was poisoned by
receiving information on the detention center six months before the public
knew. She cited a comment by U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson, in a hearing
over her federal suit against CCA and Nye County, in which Dawson said the
community desperately needed this detention center. "The word poisoned
is too strong," Pro said. Pro said he would recuse
all the federal judges in the Nevada district and direct the clerk to refer
the suit to a visiting judge. But Pro said, "I'm not suggesting that the
judges of the District of Nevada should be viewed as holding any bias, or they
were somewhat individually or collectively contaminated by the knowledge and
placement of a facility."

December
9, 2009 Pahrump Valley Times
The litany of lawsuits filed by the Concerned Citizens for a Safe Community
and Chairman Donna Cox could come with a hefty price tag. Corrections
Corporation of America and Nye County have both filed claims against CCSC for
court costs totaling over $7,500 in the wake of the unsuccessful federal suit
brought against them in an attempt to block the federal detention center
project. U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson dismissed the case Sept. 30. A suit
by CCSC against the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee is still
proceeding in U.S. District Court. There is also a newly-filed case in state
court against Nye County over alleged Open Meetings Act violations. CCA
submitted a bill for $4,446.66 that included $3,996 for printed transcripts
by the court reporter. Nye County submitted a bill of $3,098.65 for court
reporters for transcripts. Much of the transcript costs involved depositions
by Donna Cox, chairman of Concerned Citizens. The county bill also includes a
226-page deposition of Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo,
for $650.15. The CCSC attorney, Nancy Lord, filed a motion asking the court
to review the request for court costs as inappropriate. "The objection
here is to the taxation of these costs to these plaintiffs, who everyone
involves known [sic] are without funds, have paid their attorney by passing
the hat at meetings," the motion reads. The motion adds: "CCA is a
multi-million dollar corporation who could afford to pay nearly $7 million
for land before its deal was final and Nye County is a county government. The
$7,000 in costs will mean little to either of them, but it [sic] the taxing
of costs will devastate plaintiff Cox." The motion claims the recovery
of costs is an attempt to frighten CCSC into giving up its case against the
federal detention trustee. "Donna Cox has neither income nor assets and
both defendants are well aware of this," the motion said. "She stated
that the organization keeps its money in a paper bag at the home of Ms. Stern
and that it is never more than $100. Counsel is paid her very
discounted fees by passing the hat at some of the meetings," Lord's
motion said. There is no mention of recovering legal fees. The motion claims
that while the CCA attorney was paid by the hour and Nye County legal counsel
was on a salary, Lord was working nearly pro bono, or for free. Lord makes
mention of a 9th Circuit Court case that district courts should consider the
financial resources of the plaintiffs in awarding fees to a prevailing
defendant. "In this case the costs are more than this plaintiff could
ever hope to pay and will only result in an uncollectible judgment on her
credit report. In contrast, the awards of a few thousand dollars will mean
nothing to the wealth of CCA and Nye County except a mean-spirited
victory," the CCSC motion said. In a letter to CCA attorneys, Lord said
Cox lives on her husband's disability which can't be the subject of a lien.
Lord claims CCSC members Christina Stern and Jeff Wiest
weren't listed as plaintiffs during a scheduling conference and shouldn't be
subject to paying court costs. She also attempts to resolve Judith Holmgren
from paying court costs. CCSC doesn't object to the fact the defendants spent
those costs. But the motion claims, "The costs incurred in this case
were the direct result of defendant CCA's deliberate efforts to increase the
amount of time spent on collateral matters, lengthy objections during plaintiff's
deposition of Sheriff DeMeo and the like." The
motion criticizes CCA attorney Paul Shpirt for
running up the clock on the court reporters time during the depositions.
Costs for depositions should be split between both parties, Lord's motion
said, adding both Nye County and CCA could have shared copies of depositions.
CCSC held a good faith belief there was desert tortoise habitat on the
proposed site, the motion said, the basis for the federal case, which alleged
violations of the National Environmental Policy Act. The suit wasn't
frivolous, CCSC claims. If Nye County allowed the plaintiffs the chance to
redress their grievances against the detention center by public objection,
there would be no need for litigation. Lord refers to CCSC as "a rag tag
citizens' rights group." The motion also makes reference to the request
for a change of venue in the case against the Office of the Federal Detention
Trustee by CCSC, which claims the Nevada federal bench had a great need for
the federal detention center in Pahrump, which would no longer require
attorneys to travel as far as Safford, Ariz., to meet with their clients. In
their opposition, CCA attorneys said the time for the concerned citizens
group to file objections court costs lapsed Oct. 23. The response by CCA said
the concerned citizens group cited the court's inefficiency as the reason
costs had to be incurred as well as attacks against the defendant's
litigation strategies. But an objection to the costs must be grounded on
clerical or calculation error, CCA said. "Nowhere in plaintiff's motion
is there an argument that the costs are inaccurate or miscalculated,"
CCA said. Nye County's opposing motion makes the same point. Accusations the
entire Nevada federal bench is biased, based on a declaration by Frank Smith
of the Private Corrections Institute, an anti-prison privatization group, are
baseless and have no factual support, CCA claims. "Plaintiffs' argument
appears to be that because this court did not rule on plaintiff's numerous
frivolous motions to correct a multitude of mistakes made in their pleadings
and complaints in an expedited fashion, it contributed to the costs of the
litigation," the CCA response said. At the same time, CCA points out a
contradiction by the Concerned Citizens who go on to claim the depositions
and discovery will aid them in their subsequent case. Neither Cox nor CCSC
filed for pauper status with the court, CCA said. "In fact, in her
deposition, Donna Cox testified she owned a new truck and a large motor
home." The company requests the court disregard the claims by CCSC until
a debtor's examination is scheduled by the court, at which time assets owned
or controlled by the plaintiffs can be identified to satisfy the judgment.
Lord threatened to seek sanctions against the CCA attorney if there is a
debtor's exam. Nye County claims Lord intended to mislead the federal court
by being intentionally ambiguous about whose interests she represented. She
asserted in a hearing on discovery that CCSC had no members, the county said.
"Nonetheless," the county said, "several persons have put
themselves out in the public as members of this association and parties to
this litigation on their own weekly television show."

November
27, 2009 Pahrump Valley Times
Concerned Citizens for a Safe Community, or CCSC, has filed a motion for a
change of venue in U.S. District Court in their case against the Office of
the Federal Detention Trustee over the siting of
the proposed federal detention center in Pahrump. "The entire Nevada
bench has a direct, vested interest in the construction of this detention
center," the motion, filed by CCSC attorney Nancy Lord, said. The
complaint said the purpose of the detention center is to serve the federal
courthouse in Las Vegas, where the trial would be held. The motion alleges
"the entire scheme was hatched in secrecy within its walls." CCSC
had filed a lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America and Nye County
in an attempt to halt the project, which was dismissed by U.S. District Judge
Kent Dawson Oct. 1. Dawson had dismissed a request by CCSC for a temporary
restraining order and later an injunction early this year. But a suit against
the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, who issued a record of decision
to allow the detention center in Pahrump in May 2008, is still ongoing.
"Plaintiffs, and with deep regrets, must respectfully request that the
entire bench of the District of Nevada recuse
themselves and the case be transferred," the motion said. Lord suggested
holding the trial in the Central District of California in Los Angeles. Lord
charged the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee provided information to
the federal bench that was prejudicial. "Defendant OFDT and the U.S.
Marshals have poisoned the bench with information as to the need for the
detention center that is at issue and the progress of its plans," Lord
said. She cited an April 30, 2008, e-mail obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act from Federal Detention Trustee Scott Stuermer
to Gary Orton of the U.S. Marshal's Service that noted, "Since the
federal judges from Nevada have been closely monitoring our progress, would
they want to be formally briefed by our contractor on the schedule?" The
CCSC group claims there were violations of the National Environmental
Protection Act and administrative procedures in approving the project. Lord
claims the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee held "secret scoping
meetings with paltry and vague public notice." U.S. District Chief Judge
Roger L. Hunt received a briefing after a "kickoff meeting" May 21,
2008, between the detention trustee, the U.S. Marshal's Service and CCA, Lord
said. Lord faults the federal detention trustee for sending copies of the
final environmental impact statement to the Las Vegas federal bench but not
some Pahrump churches, physicians, only one Pahrump attorney, one Pahrump
Realtor, not "The Flagman" Ray "Mallow" Mielzynski nor former television talk show host Harley Kulkin. Lord claims Nye County Commission Chairman Joni Eastley remarked "it's a done deal" during a
Sept. 16, 2008, commission meeting in which a date was set for a public
hearing on a development agreement with Corrections Corporation of America.
"Now, with construction well under way, and the related case dismissed
because this one was filed, it was learned that there was regular
communication between OFDT, the U.S. Marshals and the Nevada bench during the
planning of this center," Lord's motion said. CCA officials last week
said the federal detention center is on schedule to be completed next August
and accept its first inmate Oct. 1, 2010. If a contract was rescinded between
the federal detention trustee and CCA to build the center, the federal
courthouse will be lacking a detention center until an alternate location is
found, which could take several years, the CCSC petition said. The group
doesn't fault U.S. District Judge Philip Pro, who was assigned the case
against the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee. Lord said Judge Pro
"has timely and fairly ruled on both of the motions placed before him"
regarding the case. Lord cites as precedent a previous case involving a plot
to destroy the Dirksen Courthouse in Chicago in which a circuit court granted
motions to recuse judges from the entire federal
judicial district. When it comes to the Pahrump federal detention center,
Lord said, "Judge Dawson noted in open court that it was needed because
attorneys were traveling to Safford, Ariz., to see their clients."
Attorneys for the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee fly in from
Washington, D.C., and could just as easily fly into Los Angeles International
Airport for a hearing, Lord said.

October
21, 2009 Pahrump Valley TimesA handful of union protesters picketed at each entrance to the federal
detention center job site this week, focusing on prevailing wage disputes and
the hiring of non-union labor. "They're just paying some standard wages
for the area. That's cut and dry," said Darrell Fagg,
representative of Iron Workers Local 433. "They're breaking down the
standard of living for us out here." Union picketers said fellow union
workers installing rebar walked off the job in sympathy Monday. They said a
concrete pour had to be stopped. But otherwise, construction seemed to be
going full steam ahead as tilt-up concrete walls were largely in place and a
building was taking shape in the rear of the property. Signs carried by
picketers mentioned Blanchard Hoffman Construction, a subcontractor hired by
DCK Worldwide, the general contractor, to supply and erect metal buildings on
the site. "They're non-union. We live here, we want to work here,"
said protestor Bryan Rowe, a member of Iron Workers Local 433. "We spent
$300 a week going into Vegas, why not spend $300 a
week here at the house?" Rowe said he spent eight years commuting to Las
Vegas, another union worker said he spent 15 years commuting. "They
don't have union, structural iron workers here. They have union rod busters,
but non-union structural hands. All the iron going up there is going up
non-union," said Ed Williamson, a member of the local. "These guys,
most of their hands are from out-of-state." "There's
non-union pipe fitters in there too," Williamson said. "There's quite a few iron workers out of work, union iron
workers." A man with another group of protesters said a non-union
backhoe driver for a plumbing company was making $23.50 per hour with no
benefits. One protestor, bundled up wearing a hood against the early morning
cold Tuesday, said he underwent four years of training and has 12 years of
experience as an iron worker. "There's tons of
guys out of work and we don't really see anything coming up. That's the bad
part," Williamson said. Protestors said the federal detention center
isn't considered a federal job, which would require paying construction
workers prevailing wage. "If this was a federal job, we wouldn't be out
here -- we'd be out here working. Then they've got to pay prevailing wage to
what we make anyway," Williamson said. Other union representatives have
weighed in with their concerns over the project. While a carpenters union representative
said last week four companies they have under contract would have to pay a
$4.50 per hour differential for Las Vegas workers -- an incentive to hire
Pahrump workers -- Scott Wichael, business agent
for the Operative Plasterers and Cement Masons Local 797, said his union
waived the differential for concrete subcontractor Luccero
Construction, who was merely asked to hire local labor. But Wichael said Lucero is is
actually only employing one member of their union from Pahrump. Wichael also had a concern over two companies working on
the job he couldn't find on a list of companies licensed in the state of
Nevada. "It is not a federal project, there's not federal dollars in the
construction activity, therefore we're not governed by prevailing wage."
said Buddy Johns, senior director of project development for Corrections
Corporation of America. If it was a federal job, Johns said companies
wouldn't have to be licensed in Nevada but they would have to pay prevailing
wage.

October
14, 2009 Pahrump Valley TimesThe construction trailer sits near the entrance to the job site at the
federal detention center on East Mesquite Avenue, along with a water tank
advertising a local subcontractor, Wulfenstein
Construction. The fact only one subcontractor headquartered in Pahrump got a
contract to help build the federal detention center doesn't mean the $80
million project won't put to work many local construction workers.
"Right now on the job site, there's
approximately 105 employees of which 30 are Pahrump residents," said
Buddy Johns, Corrections Corporation of America senior director for project
development. "Overall, the project is going to have about 30 percent
local labor." CCA expects a maximum of 175 to 190 construction workers
at the peak. That would mean 52 to 57 local workers based on 30-70 ratio. Wulfenstein Construction
was the only subcontractor on the list headquartered in Pahrump. Wulfenstein did the foundation work, the pad and the
on-site utilities. "When we investigated the local contractor pool, what
we found is they didn't have enough manpower or they didn't have enough
financial strength to back the project, meaning bonding, or they were not
going to be able to meet our schedule demands," Johns said.

September
11, 2009 Pahrump Valley TimesWulfenstein Construction Co. is the only
Pahrump-based firm so far on a list of subcontractors building the federal
detention center supplied by Corrections Corporation of America. Wulfenstein has been doing site work and installing
on-site utilities at the Nevada Southern Detention Center at 2250 E. Mesquite
Ave. Construction crews are working on underground utilities and pouring
concrete footings, slabs and tiltwall, according to
an update by Chris Murphree, CCA director of
construction management. Metal building erection is scheduled to begin about
the middle of this month, precast housing units are supposed to begin
arriving around Oct. 1, Murphree said. CCA hopes to
have the $80 million detention center completed by the end of 2010 for the
housing of up to 1,072 inmates awaiting trial in the federal courts or
illegal aliens awaiting deportation. Company officials said the detention
center will provide 231 jobs with a $12 million to $15 million annual
payroll. Regarding the construction, Buddy Johns, CCA senior director of
project development, told an audience during a public hearing at the Bob Ruud Community Center in August 2008, a general
contractor from Pennyslvania would be used for the
project but as many local subcontractors will be hired as possible. The subcontractor
list released last week includes mostly firms from the Las Vegas area. The
project is taking place at a time when Las Vegas shed 32,200 construction
jobs from July 2008 to July 2009, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
That's 25.7 percent of the construction industry workforce.

June
10, 2009 Pahrump Valley TimesA notice of intent to recall Nye County District 4 Commissioner Butch Borasky and town board members Nicole Shupp
and Bill Dolan was filed with the county clerk's office Friday. The notice
was signed by Larky White, Geneil White and Jack
Jordan. Larky White ran unsuccessfully for the Pahrump Town Board last year,
finishing sixth in the August primary with 781 votes. The filing gives recall
supporters 90 days to produce petitions with 652 valid signatures, 25 percent
of the people in District 4 who voted in the 2006 election. That deadline
falls on Sept. 2, according to the county clerk's office. An effort to recall
Borasky had been threatened for some months now,
since the signing of a development agreement between Nye County and
Corrections Corporation of America to build a federal detention center Dec.
16. "Under the NRS (Nevada Revised Statutes) law people have the right
to try to do a recall. I would not try to interfere in any way and respect
their right to do so. I have all the confidence in the world that the voters
who elected me to office to represent them will continue to support me in the
future," Borasky said. "It is sad that
people who can't get elected themselves will resort to a back door approach
to recall someone who is already doing a good job, to force another election
with a cost to the taxpayers of approximately $30,000,"
he said. Borasky confirmed he will be a candidate
for re-election in District 4 in the November 2010 election. He accused
Harley Kulkin of being behind the recall. A
companion petition is being circulated to nominate Donna Cox as the
replacement candidate, if Borasky's opponents
collect enough valid signatures to call for a recall election and he is voted
out of office. Cox is the president of Concerned Citizens for a Safe
Community, the group fighting the proposed federal detention center and the
plaintiff on a suit seeking to stop it. So why is Borasky
being singled out? The county commission unanimously passed the development
agreement with CCA. "Because from what we could find out, he was the
main person behind pushing for the prison. His name is on all the documents
for the county that have anything to do with the prison and he's the only one
now that's eligible to be recalled," Cox said. Cox predicted that as
soon as Nye County District 3 Commissioner Gary Hollis and Nye County
District 2 Commissioner Joni Eastley are six months
into their current terms, recall petitions will be circulated against them.
Cox said Commissioner FelyQuitevis
and LorindaWichman
weren't in office at the time the county approved agreements with the federal
detention center, commonly referred to as a prison. Quitevis
is also an opponent of the project, she said. Cox was optimistic the recall
will pass. "People are really upset over the prison. I think it's the
biggest issue we've ever had," Cox said.

January
23, 2009 Pahrump Valley TimesA film crew from Dan Rather Reports, a program aired on HD Net, a
subscriber network available on high-definition TV, was on hand to tape about
80 opponents of the Corrections Corporation of America project crammed into a
strategy meeting in a back room at the Pahrump Community Library last
Thursday night. Cameraman Derek Reich is from Park City, Utah. Reporter Kim Balin is based in New York. Balin
said she didn't want to be quoted but said for publication they were
researching how prisons affect towns on a national level. There is no
guarantee the excerpt will be aired on Dan Rather's
show, she said. Opponents of the proposed 1,500-bed facility for inmates
awaiting trial in federal court or deportation, however, made their presence
visible during a hearing in federal court Wednesday and plan to bring the
fight to state district court and hearings before the Public Utilities
Commission on water and sewer service. "We're going to continue to fight
this thing. We're going to fight it in state court. We're going to fight it
in the Public Utilities Commission. It isn't a done deal. Don't get discouraged,"
Jeff Wiest told the crowd at the library. Field
organizer Frank Smith, from the Private Corrections Institute, which opposes
the privatization of prisons, said Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada has yet
to receive permission to annex the site into their service area. Smith urged
the crowd to "raise holy heck" at PUC meetings. He suggested they
find out the addresses of PUC members and write letters to newspapers in
their home towns. The PUC "isn't four or five stiffs that live in Pahrump
or Tonopah," he said. Smith said each inmate needs 150 gallons of water
per day. He appealed to fears over the sinking water table adding, "CCA
is going to be sucking that with the biggest straw you've ever seen ...
They've come here and sold this proposal to a county commission that doesn't
know any better, that should know better. "They
came to a little town like Pahrump and they said, 'We're going to bring
development to you, we're going to bring jobs to you, money will rain from
the sky.'" Smith said the plans were originally for a facility with 350
beds, then 500 beds, then 1,072 beds, now 1,500 beds. He claimed CCA actually
wants to house 3,000 prisoners here. Smith also claimed there aren't enough
federal prisoners from Nevada to fill the detention center. He added, the purpose of the facility will change from just
housing federal inmates. Smith exhorted the crowd with an impassioned speech.
"They are going to fill this up with gangbangers from California because
California has three people to a cell. They have them sleeping in gymnasiums.
They don't know what to do with them all and CCA is looking at that market.
This federal detention center is just BS. It's a pretense. It's a charade,
and if the county commissioners didn't know that, they deserve to be recalled
for stupidity if nothing else." Smith repeated accusations CCA will buy
their products nationally, not from local vendors. When CCA Marketing Manager
Louise Grant told Storey County Commissioners in Virginia City last week
there were only a few residents in Pahrump opposed to their project, Smith
jokingly remarked she was using "new math." Smith said 1,500 people
signed a petition against the project in Pahrump. Smith charged Pahrump
residents were kept in the dark about the project until CCA "had all
their ducks in a row" with county commissioners, the planning department
and others in approval. In fact, discussions with CCA were outlined in some
detail in the PVT. Hector Velarde, one of four
residents who showed up to protest the rezoning of the East Mesquite Avenue
property in front of the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission in July 2007,
said he was one of only two people who received notice of the proposed zone
change.

January
14, 2009 Pahrump Valley Times
U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson issued a ruling Friday stating Concerned
Citizens for a Safe Community and its president, Donna Cox, failed to meet
the burden of proof necessary for the issuance of a temporary restraining
order against the proposed Pahrump federal detention center. While the
request for the temporary restraining order was thrown out, a hearing is
still pending at 9 a.m., Jan. 21, at federal court in Las Vegas on a request
for a preliminary injunction to stop the project. Nancy Lord, attorney for
CCSC, argued for the order in federal court Dec. 23 against Josh Aicklen, attorney for Corrections Corporation of America,
and Nye County Chief Civil Deputy District Attorney Ron Kent. CCA was awarded
a development agreement by county commissioners Dec. 16, to build a federal
detention center to house up to 1,500 inmates awaiting trail
in federal court or deportation at 2250 E. Mesquite Ave. While CCSC cited the
final environmental impact statement, which states the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency is concerned about the potential impacts of the proposed
project and the uncertainty of the water supply, Dawson said the same EIS
replies to those issues. He said the development agreement addresses impacts
of lighting, visibility, emergency services, public
safety and water and sewer requirements. Paul Burris, regional manager of
Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada, said last week no agreement has yet been
signed to provide water and sewer service to the federal detention center and
no hearings have been scheduled before the Public Utilities Commission.

January
9, 2009 Pahrump Daily TimesConcerned Citizens for a Safe Community has asked the Nye County
commissioners for an appeal of the approval of the development agreement for
the federal detention center to be placed on the next agenda Jan. 20 "I
submitted a letter to each one of the commissioners yesterday in regard to
the reconsideration of the vote," said Donna Cox, president of Concerned
Citizens for a Safe Community Tuesday. "We did that based on all the
verbal changes to the agreement approved on Dec. 16." County
commissioners voted 5-0 on Dec. 16 to approve a 20-year development agreement
with CCA, the final approval to building the facility that will house up to
1,500 prisoners at 2250 E. Mesquite Ave. Committee member Judith Holmgren
said the group learned later this week they have to fill out a form to submit
a request for an agenda item. They were too late for the Jan. 20 agenda and
now may have to wait until the Feb. 17 meeting, Holmgren said. CCSC claims
the county commission hasn't followed Nye County Code 16.32.080, which
requires the scheduling of a public hearing within 120 days of a
"complete" application for a development agreement. A subsection
states the county commissioners may approve the development agreement if it
finds issues identified in the application relating to the project have been
adequately addressed. The agreement has to be in conformity with the public
convenience, general welfare and good land use practices; will not be
detrimental to public health, safety and general welfare; and will not
adversely affect the orderly development of property or the preservation of
property values. The six-page letter to the commission objects to removing a
restriction on accepting only federal detainees apprehended in Nevada. The
agreement doesn't address having to treat effluent at Utilities Inc. sewer
plant No. 3 at Willow Creek golf course, the group states. CCSC said the
agreement was also modified to ban lighting outside the detention center
perimeter.

December
19, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesNye County Commission Chairman Joni Eastley
admonished Tuesday's crowd with a seasonal greeting: "Peace on earth and
good will toward men." But the Christmas-time advice wasn't heeded by
most speakers, who had some harsh words, including a threat to recall
commissioners who voted for the project. "More lies and incompetent
opinions have floated around this issue than anything we have witnessed
lately. For a well-respected company with over 17,000 employees to be
subjected to the kind of abuse that has been proclaimed here cannot be
ignored," said Mary Swadell, speaking for her
husband, Bob Swadell. Swadell
asked for a show of hands of project proponents, many wearing "yes"
stickers sitting in the audience. She said 1,000 letters, e-mails and phone
calls were turned in supporting the agreement. "This project deserves
your support. A small but noisy group tried to sabotage it and the
development agreement. Where were these people when the issues were being
discussed and approved?" Swadell asked. But
critics of the project conjured up a wide range of possible negative
scenarios that might arise. Mary Czajkowski said
she used to live across the road from a prison in Michigan City, Ind.
"There was a prisoner that got out. He went down the road to one of the farm
houses, raped and murdered a woman and her three daughters," Czajkowski said. "I don't want to see that happen
here, and I moved here to retire." Donna Como said she worked for the
Colorado and Montana Department of Corrections and CCA. "I was the person
who doctored the ACA accreditation reports for this company," she said,
referring to the American Correctional Association. Como said commissioners
need to investigate how many family members of inmates will come to Pahrump.
She added no amount of landscaping will hide a full-scale riot like the one
on July 20, 2004, at the Crowley County Correctional Facility, a CCA
institution 40 miles west of Pueblo, Colo. Julie Griffith presented
commissioners with a copy of an injunction filed to halt the project. Assistant
Sheriff Rick Marshall determined it wasn't an official service of a lawsuit.
Bob Howard was worried about the water and power use. He said the detention
center would require 230 acre feet of water rights. An acre-foot is over
320,000 gallons, enough for two families of five for a year. J.D. Cox asked
about requirements to install a traffic light at Highway 160 and Mesquite
Avenue. Mike Darby, newly-elected to the Pahrump Town Board, wanted the
company to provide money for scholarships at Great Basin College in general.
The agreement provides for a $10,000 annual contribution if the college has a
criminal justice associate degree program. Katrice
Romanoff said she had concerns over the safety of children and the elderly.
She said a number of schools as well as the Evergreen at Pahrump Health and
Rehabilitation Center are within 9.5 miles of the detention center -- the
initial bufffer zone required from residences to a
correctional center before commissioners amended the county code last year.
"Attention will have to be given to building fences and locked gates.
What about indemnification for businesses and residents also in case of any
mishaps?" Romanoff asked. Tony Lloyd felt the county should determine
the best route for transporting inmates between the detention center and the
federal courthouse in Las Vegas. He felt a better route would be to go the
northern route around the Spring Mountains, via Highway 160 through Johnnie
to Highway 95, then south to Las Vegas. Lloyd added a new commissioner will
take office in January representing that district, who
should have a vote on the agreement. He was referring to LorindaWichman who replaces Roberta "Midge"
Carver. "We're doing a recall and it's not going to be just on you Mr.
(Commissioner Butch) Borasky, you guys in six
months and some other elected officials," said Don Cox, pointing his
finger at the board. "We don't like being walked on." An elected
official has to serve six months in office before being recalled, but it's
unsure whether that time delay pertains to Commissioners Gary Hollis and Eastley, who were re-elected. Nov. 4. Cox said
commissioners ignored 25 pages of comments from Concerned Citizens for a Safe
Community. Christina Stern said, "We do not want that prison over in the
middle of town. I have done extensive research on this corporation. I've seen
what it's done to other rural communities and small towns. It destroys the
community we were trying to build here." "We're all sitting here
assuming there will never be an incident. The assumption seems to be made. I
have a problem with the road access availability to our emergency vehicles
that might be needed in the event there is an unfortunate event," said
Realtor Norma Jean Opatik. Mike Scaccia
charged the county's consultant on correctional facilities, Ira Cotler, was a prison industry financier, not a lawyer.
"This alleged development agreement clearly is incomplete. It's friendly
to privatization," Scaccia said. "Water
is not guaranteed. Sewer is not guaranteed. The Fish and Wildlife final
biological opinion is not conferred." He added, "Airport park
demands are not mentioned, and only a few, at the most, if any of the 54
citizen amendments are mentioned in the development agreement." But
others came to the company's defense, like Lucy Ivins,
Pahrump Valley Chamber of Commerce executive director. She said approving the
development agreement will encourage businesses to come to Nye County.

19,
2008 Pahrump Valley TimesThe handshakes, pats on the back and hugs were abundant between some local
officials and Corrections Corporation of America executives after Nye County
commissioners voted 5-0 late Tuesday afternoon to approve a 20-year
development agreement for a federal detention center, culminating a
negotiating process that lasted almost two years. A few seconds passed when
Nye County Commission Chairman Joni Eastley asked
for a motion, about 6:30 p.m., at the end of a public hearing that began just
before 2 p.m. Commissioner Gary Hollis made the motion. Commissioner Peter Liakopoulos, who hasn't participated in any county
commission meetings since his resignation letter was read Nov. 24, didn't
take part in the discussion but seconded the motion as he voted from a
remote, undisclosed location. Commissioner Butch Borasky
had some last-minute reservations about approving the agreement before the
town board had approved a memorandum of understanding with the company for
fire and ambulance service. Pahrump Town Manager Bill Kohbarger
said he supports the MOU along with Pahrump Fire Chief Scott Lewis. Lucibeth Nave Mayberry, CCA vice president and deputy
chief development officer, said agreements with providers of emergency
services are normally not approved until a warden has been selected. She
added, "We are contractually bound by our contract with the federal
government to enter into that." One possible final obstacle is a hearing
for a temporary restraining order scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday in federal
court in Las Vegas, requested by attorney Nancy Lord on behalf of Concerned
Citizens for a Safe Community. Assistant Sheriff Rick Marshall said county
officials weren't properly served notice of the hearing at the commission
meeting. Company and county officials didn't seem concerned after the vote.
Attorney Tom Driggs said CCA is negotiating with
Utilities Inc. of Central Nevada, which has put together an annexation plan
for the federal detention center which will be filed with the Public
Utilities Commission soon. Water rights have already been dedicated to
Utilities Inc. for its use as a water and sewer provider and will be assigned
to CCA, he said. "There is no additional draw from the Pahrump basin
that will be caused by that facility," Driggs
said. Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver thought the commissioners
"may be putting the cart before the horse," approving a development
agreement before the company has guaranteed water and sewer service. "If
they cannot serve you, will those water rights be returned?" Carver
asked. "I think those water rights would stay with Utilities Inc.,"
Driggs replied. "Well, I guess I'm having some
problems with that," Carver said. Mayberry said a lot of issues like
providing utilities were due diligence items CCA looked at when they first
picked the site. She said private correctional companies like CCA were asked to
submit a list of possible sites for a detention center to the Office of the
Federal Detention Trustee; the federal government didn't pick them out.
Problems providing utilities to the site were a major factor, she said.
"The timing of the signing of this development agreement is absolutely
crucial to the project going forward at all," Mayberry said. "The
project is being delayed past the viability of the project. We don't want to
risk the project on things that at the end of the day are CCA's risk. We impress
upon you the urgency of the project." Brad Higgins, CCA director of site
acquisition, said if negotiations with Utilities Inc. fail, the company has a
backup plan to build on-site water and sewer facilities. Mayberry, at the
start of the company's presentation, said CCA will contribute, at a minimum,
$1.2 million in grants to the community the first year, then at least
$860,000 in payments annually. That will amount to $17.53 million in
contributions over the 20-year life of the federal contract, she said.

December
17, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesPetitioners have applied for a temporary injunction to slow or possibly
halt progress toward a 20-year agreement between Corrections Corporation of
America and Nye County on development of a federal detention center at the
east end of Mesquite Avenue. The petition and supporting material was filed
Dec. 15-16 by Nancy Lord. A hearing has reportedly been scheduled in the
courtroom of Judge Kent J. Dawson in Las Vegas at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 23.
Lord is representing a group calling itself Concerned Citizens for a Safe
Community and Donna Cox, who has filed as an individual. The petition cites
the county, the county commissioners and Commissioners Butch Borasky, Gary Hollis, Peter Liakopoulos
and Midge Carver. At the same time, county commissioners were conducting a
lengthy hearing on the proposed development agreement yesterday afternoon in
Pahrump. Results were not available at press time. The petitioners, according
to Lord, all live near the proposed detention center site, and they all
"use nearby national forests for a variety of purposes" and
"derive recreational, spiritual, professional, aesthetic, educational
and other benefits and enjoyment from these activities." They also, Lord
wrote, "enjoy the benefits of dark stars [sic] at night and a peaceful
and safe rural community." Lord's pleading outlines, in some detail, the
history of the CCA's efforts to come into Pahrump and build and operate a
detention center for the federal government. It also details CCA's alleged
failures in some regards, such as not informing the county commission whether
it will drill a well or use municipal water. "Pahrump is a country
town," Lord wrote. "The citizens enjoy the starlight and the moon
rising." She said the detention center, which she refers to as a
"prison," "will be seen by almost every home in the valley.
And the lights at night will be unbearable for residents and the stars will
no longer by visible to area residents." Lord also outlined safety
concerns once a detention center is in operation. "The area is close
enough to local residences," she wrote, "and even a private
airport, that it could facilitate the escape of prisoners, allegedly
detainees to be deported, with little incentive to proceed
through their deportation proceedings." CCA has consistently noted the
inmates will include both potential deportees as well as federal suspects
waiting to be taken to trial. Additionally, said Lord, "There has been
no public hearing for a Conditional Use Permit, There has been no Conditional Use Permit issued." Lord said CCA
should be held to this requirement of the county code since the conditional
use permit addresses, in her words, "many more issues than are addressed
in the Development Agreement, especially in the areas of health, safety and
welfare." Lord asks for both a temporary and a permanent injunction
against the agreement. Her petition also refers, at some length, to county
height restrictions and notes that "it is not certain whether the CCA
facility will be 40 feet or higher." Zoning districts are established by
structure height, she wrote, and added that for sites of five or more acres,
the code calls for light fixtures no higher than 30 feet. "The
Development Agreement calls for lighting at 35 feet." In addition, she said,
"The Nye County Fire Department is not prepared to fight a fire in a 40'
structure. They have no equipment that will reach that high." The
surrounding area includes, said Lord, the county landfill, where it is
possible spills of hazardous material could occur. She said the operators
have not been required to acknowledge in writing the status of any hazardous
spills prior to the signing of the agreement "because it may affect the
Development Agreement and the construction schedule." Heavy equipment at
the landfill, she said, "could easily be stolen and driven into the
prison fences." Desert tortoises, burrowing owls and Yucca plants are
also issues that have not been properly addressed, Lord wrote. She also said
the county commission has ignored "considerable research of which it is
aware, that indicates that the presence of a prison in this rural area will
actually contribute to economic stagnation." Assumptions about
employment opportunities should have been better addressed by officials.
Prisoners could, Lord said, endanger residents "with chemicals and
equipment taken from the nearby town dump and even flying in aircraft stolen
from the airport that is also near the proposed facility."

December
12, 2008 Pahrump Valley NewsCorrections Corporation of America officials hope Nye County
commissioners will approve a development agreement for the federal detention
center after a public hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, at the Bob Ruud Community Center. "We have been very, very
diligently working with all of the parties in regard to the development
agreement and certainly our anticipation is that we will end the meeting with
an approved development agreement so we can move forward and relay that
information to our customer, who is eager as well to have that
finalized," CCA Vice-President of Marketing and Communications Louise
Grant said. "That customer" is the Office of the Federal Detention
Trustee which has given CCA 18 months to have the detention center
constructed and ready to begin accepting inmates. "We have been told
time and again by our customer, the expectation is we are still on the same
time frame," Grant said. Natasha Metcalf, who manages CCA contract
negotiations, has been in frequent discussions with Nye County
representatives since the Sept. 16 tabling of the agreement, Grant said.
"We want it to be a positive win-win," she said. When asked whether
her company came to agreement on some points raised by Nye County consultant
Ira Cotler back in September, she said, "I
believe there has been a lot of resolution." Frank Smith, a field
organizer for the Private Corrections Institute, a group opposed to the
privatization of correctional facilities, said he will arrive in the area on
Saturday. He has arranged to have Donna Como visit Pahrump. She was in charge
of determining American Correctional Association accreditation for CCA when
the company had a contract to operate the state women's prison. During the
8:30 a.m. session commissioners will consider approving 20 contracts totaling
$2.9 million to support the county Yucca Mountain oversight program, under
the consent agenda in which numerous items can be approved with one motion. A
$42,950 change order in the contract with Mills Construction for the
abatement of asbestos pipes in the demolition of the Calvada
Eye building is up for approval and an asbestos monitoring agreement with SCS
Engineers. Owners of Paddy's Pub are scheduled to reappear before the Nye
County licensing and liquor board at 9 a.m. on a show cause hearing over
their liquor license, in a case continued from Feb. 5.

October
29, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesUnited Holdings Corp. turned almost a $5.8 million profit on the sale of
land for the proposed federal detention center, county records show. United
Holdings, which lists an address of 5560 S. Fort Apache St. in Las Vegas,
purchased the 160-acre plot from David Patterson of San Juan Capistrano,
Calif. for $1.2 million on July 15, 2004, according to the county assessor's
office. The company then sold 120 acres of it to Corrections Corporation of
America Western Properties Inc. for $6.9 million on June 30, 2008. The
property is located at 2250 E. Mesquite Ave. on the corner of Powerline Road. The registered agent for United Holdings
is listed as Bill Blackwell. The president, secretary and treasurer is John Hui. United Holdings
Corp. retained a 40-acre chunk of the 160 acres. The taxable value of the 160
acres was $62,714 in the 1996-97 fiscal year, rising
to $100,660 in the 2007-08 year. After the county commissioners voted 4-1 to
approve the nonconforming zone change from open use to the new community
facilities zone for the federal detention center effective July 18, 2007, the
taxable value increased to $18.2 million before the split into 120- and
40-acre parcels, according to records at the Nye County recorder's office.
That is an increase of roughly 180 times. Nye County commissioners voted on
the zoning change without the minutes of the Pahrump Regional Planning
Commission in their backup file, since the application was on a fast track
from the July 13 RPC meeting. The Mesquite Avenue site was one of five
non-conforming zone changes approved by county commissioners at that July 18,
2007, meeting for potential federal detention center sites. The 160 acres had
been rezoned from open use to a combination of general commercial, mixed-use
and medium-density residential in the comprehensive zoning map approved for
the entire Pahrump Valley on June 20, 2007. The other four properties rezoned
to the community facilities zone at that meeting included a 40-acre town of
Pahrump property at 630 E. Parque Ave., rezoned
from a rural homestead zone, and a 30-acre town property at 1690 E. Mike
Road, rezoned from the village-residential zone. A 30-acre parcel at 6871 N. Blagg Road belonging to Citizens for Affordable Housing
Inc. and a tract at 8500 E. Huxley Ave. / 8251 E. Panaca
Ave., belonging to the Roland Karl Wiley Trust, were both rezoned from
village residential. Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky
made the motion to approve the master plan amendment and zoning change for
the 160-acre property, overturning a recommendation by the Pahrump Regional
Planning Commission against it. Commissioner Joni Eastley
cast the sole vote against the zoning change, citing the previous county
commissioner's repeal of a county code requiring a 9.5-mile minimum distance
to nearby residences from correctional facilities. The RPC on July 13, 2007,
had voted 4-2 to recommend denial of the rezoning of the 160-acre site at
2250 E. Mesquite Ave. RPC member Nevada Tolladay
made the motion to deny the rezoning, stating it would be not be desirable
given the location of adjacent, developed commercial property, according to
minutes of the meeting. Pahrump Town Board representative Laurayne
Murray joined RPC member Bat Masterson in voting against the motion to deny
the rezoning. Masterson said some homes were in the area, but they weren't
located right next door and buffering could be required around the detention
center. RPC member Norma Jean Opatik felt the site
wasn't far enough north. The RPC voted unanimously
to support the Parque Avenue location. Al Balloqui, the town of Pahrump economic development
director, argued so hard for the rezoning of the town site on Parque Avenue he was chastised by Borasky,
who said he was displaying an unprofessional attitude in criticizing county
staff. Balloqui charged there was "serious
inconsistency in the evaluations of the proposed sites and they are tilted
toward some sites over others." RPC Chairman Mark Kimball was initially
in favor of rezoning the 160 acres, but voted against recommending approval
in light of opposition voiced from four neighbors at the public hearing:
Hector Velarde, Luella Davis, Julius McKay and
James Davis. No phone number was listed in the Las Vegas telephone directory
for United Holdings Corp.

October
24, 2008 Pahrump Valley Times
Action on a proposed development agreement with Corrections Corporation of
America for a federal detention center was postponed another two months until
Dec. 16 by Nye County commissioners Tuesday. A crowd of bystanders showed up
anyway to voice comments about the project, though it was reported there
wouldn't be any action taken. That delays a vote on the agreement until well
after the election. CCA Senior Director of Site Acquisition and Development
Brad Wiggins, said when the project was tabled last
month commissioners made a critical timeline even more critical. Consultant
Ira Cotler, managing director of Correctional
Finance and Consulting Solutions, just gave his comments on the development
agreement back to CCA officials Monday. The two sides are said to be far
apart on the conditions. Cotler, who was given a
$50,000 contract by county commissioners to work on the development
agreement, said he drafted an outline with all the issues that were raised in
the past. "We've had two meetings with CCA, going through that outline
in very general terms, just to throw out the topics on the table," Cotler told commissioners. Cotler
also gave his input to Mark White, the attorney who represents Nye County on
the drafting of development agreements, for inclusion in the agreement. More
meetings between Cotler and CCA were scheduled
Wednesday. "Our goal has been to expand the original development
agreement to more than just a development agreement to any other style of
project and address the thoughts and concerns associated with a correctional
facility," Cotler said. Nye County Commission
Chairman Joni Eastley said commissioners didn't
have a copy of the revised development agreement as CCA hasn't had time to
reply to Cotler's remarks. She proposed tabling the
discussion until Dec. 16, as there will only be one regular commission
meeting in November due to the election and the Thanksgiving holiday. Nye
County Manager Rick Osborne asked about scheduling a special meeting. Eastley said her schedule was totally booked the rest of
this month and the first week or two in November. She said a second public
hearing would have to be scheduled during a regular commission meeting with
adequate public notice. When Judith Holmgren asked for a copy of the revised
development agreement, Osborne replied, "It's all confidential
negotiations at this point until we get a draft that we feel is suitable to
present to the board, and at that point it becomes a public document."
The crowd booed. Asked for a comment after the delay was announced, Louise
Grant, CCA's vice-president of marketing, said, "CCA is disappointed
that the development agreement is not yet finalized. Assuredly, our
government partners are eager for us to have that last component of the plan
final and secure so we can move forward with this exciting project. We trust
that the commission will work to help us make final arrangements by the date
they'd just indicated. CCA will continue to operate in good faith to move
forward this very important agreement." Eastley
ran a tightly-controlled public comment period, with two minutes allowed for
each speaker. They were restricted to commenting on suggestions to be
included in the development agreement, not whether they liked the project or
not. Eastley indicated her exhaustion at being
bombarded with comments about the detention center, asking speakers not to
talk about things like a "60 Minutes" news special on CCA or
similar topics. The crowd spilled into Room B, where a television monitor was
installed. Frank Smith, representing the Private Corrections Institute, was
cut short after two minutes. "Nobody did the most basic research on
this," Smith said. "The development agreement is predicated on certain
premises. One is that somehow this would be an economic benefit to the
community. We found no evidence the prison has stimulated growth. In fact, we
found evidence the prison has impeded economic growth." County
commission candidate Harley Kulkin wanted a public
hearing where the public isn't limited to two minutes. Jeff Wiiest asked commissioners to table action until January,
so the new board can take responsibility for their actions. Numerous
suggestions were made by Pahrump residents.

October
22, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesA crowd of more than 50 people, energized by a
"60 Minutes" video blasting Corrections Corporation of America's
operation of a private prison in Youngstown, Ohio, had finished two hours of
heated rhetoric against the proposed federal detention center in Pahrump at
the Hafen Elementary School multipurpose room
Saturday afternoon. It had escalated into an atmosphere of cries to vote all
the incumbent politicians out of office when Nye County District 4
Commissioner Butch Borasky walked in. "I just
spent two and a half days with a couple of other folks in Eloy
and Florence," he said of two communities in Arizona where CCA runs
prisons. "We visited eight facilities. I talked to as many people as I
could in those communities. I'll tell you right now, I didn't get one
negative comment from anybody." That comment drew boos from the crowd.
Former Nye County sheriff's candidate Ted Holmes remarked about his fear gang
members and possible drug cartel members would be housed at the proposed
center. Holmes said he wouldn't have any concerns if the detention center was
at Cold Creek, where the present Indian Springs state prison is located, just
over Wheeler Pass from Pahrump. But he said with the proposed location on
2250 E. Mesquite Ave., "the quickest house is less than six minutes
walking distance." Holmes then remarked he was so mad he wanted to punch
a politician about it. Borasky then walked up to
Holmes, where they stood nose-to-nose before Holmes backed down on his threat
and Borasky walked out of the room. It was probably
the climax of a crescendo of angry comments directed at the federal detention
center by people who complained they weren't aware of the project. Judith
Holmgren read transcripts from a public hearing on the detention center by
the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee in June 2007 in which Borasky, commenting as a private citizen, said "I
wholeheartedly support the idea of bringing the detention center here."
The 60 Minutes excerpt concerned a prison break in Youngstown that the mayor
said could've been the country's largest prison break. Show co-host, the late
Ed Bradley, announced hard-core inmates were transferred from Washington,
D.C., into what was supposed to be a medium-security prison. Frank Smith, of
the anti-privatization Private Corrections Institute, who hosted the
informational meeting, noted other prison breaks, including one in Oklahoma
that involved two elderly women hostages, invoking the worst case nightmare.
He told about prison riots, like one at the Crowley County Correctional
Facility in Olney Springs, Colo. Smith charged CCA would use out-of-town
labor to build the facility, as evidenced by his conversation with roofers at
a restaurant in Olney Springs, Colo., who admitted they had worked on a
detention center in California City, Calif. "No matter what the chamber
of commerce may want to believe, they don't leave money in town, they don't
leave a penny more than they have to," he said. Smith said the presence
of detention facilities, even where there are good paying jobs, chases away
other industries and residents. "They go to towns that are desperate,
that are easily convinced they are going to be some kind of godsend, there's
going to be money raining from the sky," Smith said. Steve Holbo, a retired California correctional officer, said
the majority of correctional officers initially will probably be imported
from other states as a job promotion. "You cannot open your facility
with 240 green people trying to work at the facility. The probability of the
fact is that the Pahrump area is only going to see possibly 10 correctional
officers hired initially out of the valley during the first year of
operation," Holbo said. He said being this
close to California could be a temptation for CCA to house some of its 5,000
inmates in that state in the Nevada Southern Detention Center. Kenny Bent
said he was a general engineering contractor for over 21 years, putting in
treatment plants and pump stations. He claimed the project, which would use
130,000 gallons per day, would drop water levels in wells. Pat Kerby said the development agreement should require CCA
to dig wells deeper, if it impacts the water supply. "We need to
pressure the county commission to alter this development agreement so it's
more favorable to Pahrump and make the decision before the election," Kerby said. An angry Butch Clendenen,
who recently bought a home on nearby Kitty Hawk Drive, went a step further.
"You can vote in this election, and the incumbents have to be voted out
now. That's the only way this agreement isn't going to happen. Face it, they
had 17 supposed meetings where they notified the public that nobody knew
about," Clendenen said. County commission
candidate Harley Kulkin said the development
agreement was spearheaded by outgoing County Manager Ron Williams behind
closed doors. "We need to push so that the public is part of this
development agreement and then we need to come up with some ideas of how we
can make this development agreement fair to protect a community, and then I
believe CCA will back out of the agreement and go somewhere else," Kulkin said. "They're only here for one reason, they
want to house prisoners and the cheapest place to do business, and they found
this is the most naive place and they'll get away with plenty here."
Town board candidate Mike Darby said he has a history in the construction
industry as a heavy equipment operator. "The agreements that I've read
that they have put out there, I would love to have that agreement because it
basically gives you a wide open contract to do anything and everything you
want," Darby said. Jeff Bobeck, who ran
unsuccessfully for Nye County Commission District 1, said he's a flight
instructor at Calvada Airpark, located near the
detention center site. Bobeck said he requested an
opinion from the Federal Aviation Administration about including the private
airport in the development agreement. "If I were
going to try to escape from this prison -- and we have learned it is possible
-- I would be headed straight for there," Bobeck
said. "Within 100 feet of each airplane is the owner with keys who knows
how to fly it and many of them also have enough fuel
to make it to Mexico." Robert Smith, no relation to Frank Smith, asked
for a recall "on all the corrupt politicians in this town." Bent
criticized an alleged e-mail from Commissioner Joni Eastley
in which he quoted the commissioner as saying, "This is a done deal
there's no turning back, there's nothing left but signing the development
agreement." "It could be easily stopped right there, right now,"
Bent said. Robin Lloyd urged attendees to flood commissioners with e-mails,
phone calls and letters. She urged them to sign a petition asking
commissioners to reinstate the 9.5 mile minimum distance to correctional
facilities in the county code.

October
15, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesOfficials from Corrections Corporation of America don't plan to be in
attendance when the Private Corrections Institute hosts a meeting on the pros
and cons of a federal detention center in Pahrump at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Hafen Elementary School Auditorium. Frank Smith, field
organizer for the Private Corrections Institute will be the featured speaker.
He invited prominent local opponents of the project to join him on a panel. A
biography on the Private Corrections Institute Web site states Smith has been
a social justice activist for four decades, involved in criminal justice
research, worked on a medical marijuana initiative in Alaska, labor
organization, moratoriums on prison construction, restoring civl rights, alternatives to incarceration and programs
offering substance abuse treatment. If his resume looks as if he's committed
to finding alternatives to incarceration, that's a correct assumption.
"That makes sense to the taxpayer," Smith said in a telephone interview.
"We have way too many people in jail for way too long." During
comments at the public hearing on the development agreement for the federal
detention center at the Nye County Commission meeting Sept. 16, Smith said
the new president inaugurated Jan. 20, 2009, could change the country's
immigration policy. The CCA facility would house prisoners awaiting a hearing
in federal court and illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. "There
will be an enormous surplus of beds which the (private prison) industry tends
to ignore," Smith predicted. Smith said he has dealt with CCA, the
nation's largest private prison operator, for 12 years and warned, "A
deal is never a deal." "If you look at a town like Shelby, Mont.,
you'll find out how many times a deal gets
negotiated in CCA's favor," he said at the public hearing. Smith said
CCA uses a central purchasing system, which means they don't spend as much
money in town. Smith and CCA Vice-President of Marketing and Communications
Louise Grant exchanged words at the conclusion of the public hearing. Grant
said the Private Corrections Institute was founded by the Florida Police
Benevolent Association, a union representing prison workers. "They're
completely opposed to privatization because unions are (opposed)," Grant
said. She charged the organization receives funding from the American
Federation of State, Federal, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
"They are paid or they volunteered to come into communities specifically
to go against privatization. That's their sole purpose," Grant said.
Smith, who is from Love City, Kan., denied Grant's accusations. He said the
Private Corrections Institute was formed by several people active in the area
of private prisons. He downplayed executive director Ken Kopczynski's
role with the Florida Police Benevolent Association, though his resume on the
institute's Web site states Kopczynski has been a legislative and political
affairs assistant for the FPBA since 1993, the largest collective bargaining
agent for law enforcement, correctional and probation officers in Florida.
"I can assure you that we won't be there," Grant said in a
telephone interview Tuesday. "We have stated publicly what the agenda of
the Private Corrections Institute is, and certainly our relationship is with
the county and we are continuing to very proactively work on the development
agreement. That's where our focus is today." Grant said the company has
held numerous public hearings, spoke at length at two recent town hall type
meetings, posted information on its Web site and had community officials
visit their facilities in other communities. Smith will provide extensive
data regarding the harmful consequences for host communities of detention
centers, the advertisement states. He will discuss media, political and legal
strategies to keep Pahrump from being victimized by CCA.

September
19, 2008 Pahrump Valley TimesWhen Nye County commissioners postponed consideration of a development
agreement for the proposed federal detention center until Oct. 21, they put Corrections Corporation of America in a tight
spot. County commissioners heard almost two hours of testimony on the
proposed development agreement Tuesday, which mostly involved listening to
the public air their opinions. Commissioners didn't get into negotiating
specific items of the agreement with the company. "A critical time line
has just become even more critical," Brad Wiggins, CCA's site
acquisition manager, said. The development agreement was made a condition of
the rezoning before CCA can obtain the building permit to begin construction.
The company also expects a biological opinion today on what mitigation
measures should be taken to protect the desert tortoise, which isn't expected
to be a deal-breaker. CCA is expected to have the detention center ready
within a number of months after the biological opinion, Wiggins said. The
record of decision issued in May, identifying the site at 2250 E. Mesquite
Ave. as the preferred location, stated development of the proposed detention
facility is expected to be accomplished within approximately 12 to 15 months
following the award of the contract. Louise Grant, CCA vice-president of
marketing and communications, said, "The federal government has not
changed its expectations for when we would accept the first prisoners."
Grant said the turnout and reaction from many Pahrump residents was typical
of the reaction in other communities unfamiliar with private correctional
facilities. Wiggins said Pahrump opponents may think CCA isn't being honest.
But Wiggins, a former Federal Bureau of Prisons official, added, "They
don't know after all those hundreds of thousands of hours of working in those
facilities, I have to go to sleep at night knowing that I haven't said
anything that's not true." Grant said groups that oppose privatization
of prisons in general, like the Private Corrections Institute, had
"their hired guns" at the hearing. She said the corrections
institute was founded by prison union workers from Florida. Frank Smith, of
Love City, Kan., representing the Private Corrections Institute, cautioned
commissioners that after 12 years of dealing with CCA, he has found that
"a deal is never a deal.' Steve Holbo, a
retired lieutenant with the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation, said. "It's really difficult for me to believe you have
to accept the fact the federal government is going to put a federal pen right
in the middle of your town. This is just not happening in California when we
build state pens." Holbo said two prisons were
built 20 miles outside of Blythe, Calif. He previously had promoted research
prepared by the American Correctional Officer Intelligence Network critical
of private prisons.

Saguaro Correctional Center, ArizonaAug 23, 2018
thenevadaindependent.com Nevada inmates held in Arizona private prison go on hunger strike, allege
subpar conditionsA group of Nevada inmates who are being housed in a private prison in
Arizona have gone on a hunger strike, although prison officials say it’s not
clear that it’s directly rooted in a nationwide prison strike happening in
protest of laws and conditions in America’s prisons. Nevada Department of
Corrections Director James Dzurenda said the strike
began Tuesday, when 18 inmates who are being housed at the Saguaro
Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona skipped a
meal. He said several had resumed eating by Wednesday, and that no
force-feeding was happening because they hadn’t missed very many meals. NDOC
spokeswoman Brooke Santina added that her agency is
in regular contact with the private prison, which is run by CoreCivic. The state has a contract with the company to
house 200 prisoners because Nevada facilities have run out of room. “Medical staff are aware of the inmates who are choosing to miss
meals, however, inmates fast periodically for health or religious reasons. It
is an inmate’s right to choose not to eat for whatever reason. We do not
force-feed individuals,” Santina said. “There are a
certain number of meals that must be missed before we begin a hunger
protocol.” American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada Policy Director Holly Welborn said that in the past week or two, her
organization had received more than a dozen complaints from Nevada inmates at
the private prison, and about half of those who submitted complaints said
they would be participating in the strike.While the ACLU of Nevada declined to release direct copies of the
complaints, they shared a summary of the correspondence. The inmates have
alleged that CoreCivic is not following Nevada
regulations related to inmate funds, is failing to follow through with
medical plans established before they were transferred to Arizona and is
reducing good time credits (sentence reductions for good behavior) that the
inmates previously earned. The prisoners also allege that there’s an
inappropriate use of “segregation” (inmates separated from the general population),
that staff is retaliating against inmates for submitting complaints and that
they’re being restricted from or denied access to the commissary, religious
services, educational programming, medical care and visitation. Dzurenda said he’s aware of the complaints and is looking
into the situation. “We had an agreement with [CoreCivic]
that services and conditions of confinement were supposed to be nothing less
than what we have in Nevada,” he said. “So we’re beginning to make sure
they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to.” But he said he believes the
complaints are originating from members of a single prison gang who have been
harassed by another gang and want to leave. “They’ve been having constant
problems for the last month and they’re trying to find any way possible to
get out,” he said. Organizers of the nationwide prison strike, set to run
from August 21 to Sept. 9, are making ten demands for reform. They include a
call for standard wages for their labor, an end to sentences without parole, access
to rehabilitation programs even for violent offenders and voting rights for
inmates. The ACLU said it supports the demands of the prisoners on strike.
“Our country is stronger when people most marginalized and directly impacted
by unjust policies raise their voices in protest and demand a different
future,” the national organization said in a statement. “We urge corrections
officials not to respond with retaliation. Peaceful demonstrations
challenging unjust conditions and practices do not merit placing participants
into solitary confinement or adding time to their sentences.”

Southern
Nevada Womens Correctional Facility
North Las Vegas, Nevada
CCA
July 8, 2010 AP
A federal appeals court Thursday struck down a Nevada prison policy imposed
to crack down on sex between inmates and correctional officers at a women’s
prison that was described as an “uninhibited sexual environment.” The 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said requiring supervisory
positions be held only by female correctional officers discriminates against
male employees. “Precluding men from serving in supervisory positions in
women’s prisons is not a substitute for effective leadership and enforcement
of workplace rules,” Circuit Judge Marsha S. Berzon
wrote for the three-judge panel. Howard Skolnik,
director of the Nevada Department of Corrections, said Thursday the policy no
longer exists. “We have male lieutenants at that facility,” he told The
Associated Press. “It’s been like that since I’ve been director.” Skolnik was appointed director in February 2007. The
policy was imposed at the Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Facility after
an inmate was impregnated by a male guard in 2003. The prison at the time was
run by a private company, Corrections Corp. of America, which pulled out of
its contract after the scandal. An investigation by the inspector general
uncovered “widespread knowledge” that inmates traded sex with guards for
favors and privileges. The inspector general interviewed about 200 inmates
and noted “frequent instances of inappropriate staff/inmate interaction,” and that in exchange for sex, prison staff
“routinely” supplied inmates with alcohol, drugs, cosmetics and jewelry,
court documents said. Jackie Crawford, former state corrections director,
imposed the policy after the state took back operation of the prison.

April
30, 2010 Pahrump Valley Times
While Corrections Corporation of America is close to opening an $80 million
federal detention center in Pahrump, the company chose an early termination
of their contract to operate the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center
in North Las Vegas in 2004 due to the high cost of medical care. The Nevada
Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, scheduled to begin accepting inmates in
October, is a male-only facility. CCA was awarded a 20-year contract by the
Office of the Federal Detention Trustee to build and operate the Pahrump
facility, which is up for renewal every five years. At a Jan. 28, 2004 meeting
of the State Interim Finance Committee, the Nevada Department of Corrections
considered taking over inmate medical care at the women's prison from CCA
March 1 that year. But talk then expanded to the state taking over the
facility completely. Senate Bill 278, approved by the 1995 Nevada
Legislature, allocated $44 million to construct a new women's correctional
center in southern Nevada. CCA constructed a correctional facility for 550
inmates and began housing the female prisoners. The state purchased the land,
buildings and equipment from CCA on Oct. 3, 2001, with an operating contract
to remain in effect through June 30, 2015, according to minutes provided by
the research division of the Legislative Counsel Bureau. CCA was given a per
diem rate of $40.03 per inmate, which was to increase by 3 percent per year.
By 2004 that rate increased to $47.79. The contract provided for automatic
renewals every three years, with a renewal scheduled Oct. 3, 2004. CCA and
the state DOC had been in discussions over the per diem rate and the
provision of health care to the facility for three years. Nevada DOC Medical
Administrator Chuck Schardin reported CCA health
care costs increased 21 percent from $2.4 million in 2002 to almost $3
million in 2003. Off-site expenses alone nearly doubled from $589,840 to
$1.06 million. The minutes show a dramatic reduction of inmates from
projected numbers also caused difficulties. While the women's correctional
facility held 550 inmates at one time, there was a population of only 445 inmates
in early 2003. In spring 2002, CCA alleged inmates from honor camps with
medical problems were being dumped at the women's prison. In excerpts of the
minutes from the Jan. 28, 2004, meeting, Tony Grande, CCA vice-president for
state relations, said, "Continuing the contract would be exceedingly
difficult if CCA was not able to remedy the costs related to medical services
being provided at SNWCF." Dr. Ted D'Amico, medical director for the
state DOC, is quoted in March 31, 2004, as saying: "CCA had struggled
with the medical care of inmates from the start because of their inability to
hire good administrators." The intake process at the correctional
facility required assistance from the Nevada DOC during a year in which the
medical director's budget absorbed nearly $300,000 of medical care costs,
D'Amico said. CCA had problems providing timely dental care to inmates, who
had to be incarcerated for six months before dental care was provided,
D'Amico said. The company provided a half-time dentist, he said. There were
also concerns about psychotropic medications and HIV program standards. John Tighe, CCA vice president of health services, was quoted
as saying bluntly, "Operating an institution housing female inmates was
not an easy task." CCA was committed to providing quality care at the
women's prison and had to fill in employment gaps, flying in staff from other
areas using temporary and agency personnel, which wasn't cost effective, Tighe said. State Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, suggested
the state assume operation of the entire facility, instead of just the
medical care. Following that discussion, CCA provided a notice of contract
termination Feb. 23, 2004, effective Oct. 1, 2004. D'Amico "commended
CCA's expertise and hard work during the length of their contract with the
state." The facility, now under state management, is now known as the
Florence McClure Women's Correctional Center.

July 12, 2005 Las Vegas Sun
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a suit against the Corrections Corporation
of America brought by a female inmate who had sex with a former prison guard,
according to attorneys on both sides of the case. The judge, Robert Jones,
also ordered that transcripts of Monday's hearing be sent to the Nevada State
Bar because the case against the corporation may have violated rules on
frivolous lawsuits, attorneys said. The original suit, brought by Korinda Martin, alleged that the Corrections Corporation
was negligent and did not properly hire and train staff at Southern Nevada
Women's Facility, among other complaints. While serving time at the
facility, Martin had sex with a guard, Randy Easter, and was impregnated. She
later gave birth to a boy. Martin and Easter pleaded guilty to having
sexual relations, and a state judge sentenced them both to probation. He
stated during the sentencing that the sex between the two was
consensual. The judge essentially felt that Martin schemed to get
pregnant and then sue, lawyers said. They said that Jones believed Martin's
suit may have violated rules on frivolous lawsuits and rules dictating that
an attorney make accurate representation of a case as an officer of the court.

April
20, 2005 AP
A former Nevada state prison inmate and the former guard who fathered her
child have been sentenced to probation by a judge who decided the
relationship was consensual. Clark County District Court Judge Donald Mosley
said Tuesday that love notes and photos Korinda
Martin, 25, gave to Randy Easter, 46, showed she was not a victim. Martin
maintains she was forced into sex by Easter when she became pregnant in 2003
at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center in North Las Vegas. Easter
pleaded guilty in January to voluntary sexual conduct with a prisoner, a
felony. Martin pleaded the equivalent of no contest to conspiracy to commit a
crime, a gross misdemeanor. The two had been indicted on one count each of
voluntary sexual conduct between an inmate and another person. Martin has
filed a federal lawsuit against Easter and Corrections Corporation of
America, which ran the women's prison until the state took control last
October. Martin's lawyer, Scott Olifant, said
Tuesday that Martin could not have consented to sex because of Easter's
position of authority.

August
2, 2004
Leaders of Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison operator
that built and has run the state women's prison in North Las Vegas since
1997, complain the company has unfairly criticized
for its treatment of inmates. John Tighe,
vice president of health services for Corrections Corporation of America,
says the company has lost $1 million a year, mainly from supplying quality
health and mental health services to the 464 inmates at the Southern Nevada
Women's Correction Facility. Tighe and CCA
spokesman Steve Owens said they wanted to correct "inappropriate and
misinformed allegations" against the company. They said the company
deals humanely with the inmates and will continue to do so until Oct. 1, when
the state takes over the prison. Dr. Ted D'Amico, director of medical
services for the state Department of Corrections, said the company focused on
its profit margin and "the mental health and health care were not as
good as we thought it should be." (AP)

June
21, 2004
The Nevada Corrections Department says it could do a better job of running a
women's prison in North Las Vegas than a private company - but costs would go
up by at least $1 million a year. The department said it would have a
better-qualified staff and provide "superior programming" for the prison,
which houses about 460 inmates. "Under a private vendor, the
women's correctional system would continue to be fragmented from the rest of
Nevada's correctional operations and remain subject to the allegation that
Nevada's female offenders are denied equal
protection or treated like 'second-class citizens,"' the department
said. The prison has had problems in the past year that included an
inmate becoming pregnant. DNA testing showed a guard was the father. In
addition, inmates signed a petition that complained of poor food quality and
medical care, among other things. Corrections Corporation of America,
which built and has operated the prison since 1997, is pulling out on Sept.
30 at the end of its contract. (AP)

April 12, 2004Nearly half of the 464 inmates at a privately run
state women's prison in North Las Vegas have signed a petition stating
conditions at the prison are unacceptable and the state should take over.The 215 inmates are complaining about poor food and
medical care, staffers who aren't properly trained, inadequate grievance
procedure and missing personal items at the prison now run by Corrections
Corporation of America.The petition
was sent to Governor Guinn, members of the Legislature and the state Department
of Corrections. (krnv.com)

February 26, 2004
Gov. Kenny Guinn's administration is going to try to find another private
company to run the state women's prison in North Las Vegas, but the state may
eventually become the operator. Jackie Crawford, director of the state
Department of Corrections, said Tuesday she intends to compete with private
companies in the bidding process for control of the 550-bed Southern Nevada
Women's Facility. Crawford's proposal has the support of Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, vice chairwoman of the
Assembly Ways and Means Committee, which helps shape the state's
budget. Giunchigliani, a supporter of state
operation of the prison, said the Department of Corrections should be allowed
in the competition. Corrections Corporation of America, the company
that built and operated the prison since 1997, has given notice it will not
renew its contract effective Oct. 1. The company said it is pulling out
because it has lost money on the operation. Keith Munro, Guinn's legal
counsel and assistant chief of staff, said Tuesday the administration would
put out a request for proposals for a private company to continue to operate
the prison. He said the Legislature fashioned the biennial budget to have a
private company in charge. But Giunchigliani
said the state could take it over with approval of the Legislative Interim
Finance Committee, which meets several times before the Legislature opens in
February 2005. Munro said it "won't take long" to put
together a request for proposals and the evaluation process would require 90
to 120 days Corrections Corporation of America is the largest operator
of private prisons in the nation. Steve Owen, a company spokesman, said the
company would have an interest in submitting a bid to win back a new version
of the Nevada contract about he emphasized it would have to be a
"viable" contract to allow the company to earn a profit.
Crawford said any bid proposal should require a company to pay it worker as
much as the state would. She said that was "fair and
equitable." Crawford said the security and the rehabilitation
programs of CCA at the North Las Vegas prison were good. She said there were
no escapes and no major disturbances. Crawford said CCA was "very
cooperative" when she had to pare down her budget because of the tough
financial times being experienced by the state. Crawford said,
"I'm not blaming (CCA)" for canceling the contract. She said she
understood the company is out to make a profit. The only issue was
medical care for the women inmates, she said. CCA had complained that the
state would dump sick inmates from other prison conservation camps into the
North Las Vegas prison. The prison and CCA reached an agreement for the
state to assume the medical care for the inmates. Dr. Ted D'Amico, director
of the medical program for the prison, said he could provide better care for
the female inmates if the state assumed control of that phase. CCA
would have paid the state $14.71 per inmate each month this fiscal year and
$15.15 next fiscal year to cover the health care. That would have reduced the
state's payment per inmate to CCA to $33 per inmate a month this fiscal year
and $34.08 next fiscal year. The Legislative Interim Finance Committee,
however, balked at the suggestion and appointed a study committee headed by
Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, to
examine the deal. Raggio, a strong proponent
of private companies running prisons, said the budget staff of the
Legislature felt the prison would end up spending more money on this medical
care than CCA was allocating. Raggio, whose
son died in the last week, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The state went out to bid in 2002 for other private companies to run the
prison. It was looking for a better and more economical deal than CCA of
Tennessee. CCA wound up being one of the five bidders. The others were
Cornell Companies of Houston, Texas; Correctional Medical Services of St.
Louis, Mo.; Prison Health Services of Brentwood, Tenn.; and Civigenics of Marlborough, Ma. Munro said an
evaluation showed the existing CCA contract was still the best. Giunchigliani said legislators "always anticipate
the state running the prison." She said the state does the best job in
this area. "Hopefully Jackie (Crawford) will staff up and make a
bid," she said. Giunchigliani said,
however, that she would like to see a nonprofit company run the drug
rehabilitation program at the women's prison. And she wants to make sure the
women are trained for jobs, not just for cooking, sewing and
housekeeping. The Oct. 1 pullout by CCA will give the chance for the
state corrections department to approach the Interim Finance Committee for
some extra money and then come to the session that starts in February for a
full budget presentation, said Giunchigliani.
Giunchigliani said she pushed for a new women's
prison in 1991 but some lawmakers wanted to put it in Lincoln County as a
form of economic development. She said she had to agree to allow a private
company to operate it so it could be built in Clark County where there are
more services and the inmates are closer to their families. The
contract between the state and CCA runs until June 2015 with an automatic
renewal every three years. CCA took the option of notifying the state now so
it would have plenty of time to find an alternative operator. CCA is
the latest private company to pull out of a contract with the state in a
penal institution. The state ended its contract with a private company to
provide medical care at the state prison in Ely last year. Munro said that
contract lasted seven to eight years. Summit View, the male juvenile
detention center in North Las Vegas, was operated by the private Correctional
Services Corp. But there were problems there including escapes and staff having
sexual relations with the inmates. Correctional Services ended its
contract, claiming it could not make money. State Human Resources
Director Mike Willden blamed part of the problem on
the low pay at Summit View that attracted some unqualified staff. Willden advocated and finally got approval for the state
to re-open the center with state employees. Willden
argued that state operation of the facility would allow for better control of
security and better control of the programs being offered to the inmates.
Crawford said one of the problems both she and CCA faced in Clark County was
hiring employees. She said Clark County pays higher wages and the state
prison and the privately owned prison lost workers to the county. She
said the turnover rate of correctional officers at the Southern Nevada
Women's Facility was high. CCA built the North Las Vegas prison but the
state eventually bought the buildings and the equipment from the private
company. The most recent controversy at the prison involved an inmate
who became pregnant. DNA testing indicated the father of the baby was a
former guard at the prison, authorities said. (Sun Capital Bureau)

February
4, 2004
An investigation and DNA testing have identified former prison guard Randy
Easter as the father of a baby boy born to Nevada prison inmate Korinda Martin on Jan. 12, a state Department of Prisons
official said Tuesday. Assistant Director Glen Whorton
added the department’s inspector general has turned over its information on
the case to the state attorney general’s office for review. Criminal
charges could be brought against Martin and Easter for violating a law that
prohibits sex in the prisons. The law says a prisoner who voluntarily
engages in sexual conduct with another person is guilty of a felony. So is
anyone else who has sex with a prisoner. Martin said she was
impregnated by Easter at the women’s prison in North Las Vegas. The prison is
run by Corrections Corp. of America. The baby was born after Martin was
transferred from the prison system’s regional medical center in Carson City
to Carson-Tahoe Hospital. In a lawsuit she filed, Martin named Easter
as the father and sued him, Corrections Corp. of America, the Department of
Corrections and Gov. Kenny Guinn. (Reno Gazette-Journal)

January 31, 2004
The private company that has a state contract to run the women's prison in
North Las Vegas wants to jettison the expensive part of its job. The
Corrections Corporation of America has asked the state to take over medical
care of the inmates at the 550-bed prison. In exchange, it has proposed that
its per-inmate rate of pay be lowered by $14 -- from $47 a day to $33. This
sounds like a fabulous deal -- for the private company. Even Senate
Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, a supporter of
privatization, seemed to be thinking the same thing when he blocked the offer
this week after it came before the Legislative Interim Finance Committee.
Intuition alone tells us that $14 a day per inmate -- $7,700 a day if the
prison was full -- would not likely cover the medical costs the state would
be assuming. Just one major medical procedure, let alone the actual number
that might occur every day among more than 500 inmates, could top that
amount. Although a CCA representative said the deal would be a "wash,"
the committee was right to order a thorough financial analysis of the
proposal -- even though there is an urgent aspect to this issue. Dr. Ted
D'Amico, medical director for the state's prison system, was not considering
finances when he urged the committee to approve the proposal. His issue was
the quality of care the women are receiving. The care is "not up to
standard," he said, adding that "it's dangerous to
wait." In our view, this statement alone should be enough for the
state to end its experiment with privatization of vital services. The profit
motive, so productive in private industry, is simply not compatible with the
mission of government, which is to provide efficient, quality service in all
of its areas of responsibility. The state should cancel its contract with
this private company and assume its proper role in running the prison.
(Las Vegas Sun)

January 30, 2004
Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, on
Wednesday blocked a state takeover of the medical care of female inmates at
the state's women's prison in North Las Vegas because, he said, he wanted to
make sure the state didn't shortchange taxpayers. Raggio
convinced other members of the Legislative Interim Finance Committee to
appoint a subcommittee to determine how much it will cost the state to assume
responsibility for the health of the inmates. The Corrections
Corporation of America runs the prison under contract with the state and is
paid $47 per day per inmate in the 550-bed prison. Under the proposal, CCA
would reduce its per diem rate by $14 with the state taking over health
care. Raggio said the fiscal staff of the
Legislature believes it is going to cost the state more than $14 per prisoner
per day. Dr. Ted D'Amico, medical director for the prison system, urged
the committee to approve the contract revision. He said the medical care at
the North Las Vegas prison was "not up to standard." He said
his state staff has "better capability" than CCA. "It is
dangerous to wait," he said. The takeover was scheduled for March
1. Raggio said he wanted more time to study
the deal. He said CCA was getting rid of the troublesome program and keeping
the easier one -- security at the prison. But John Tighe,
vice president for health care of CCA, said security "is not
easy." (Sun Capital Bureau)

January 29, 2004
A legislative panel delayed action Wednesday on a plan to have the state take
over medical care of inmates at a women's prison in North Las
Vegas. Instead, the lawmakers'Interim
Finance Committee formed a subcommittee to meet with officials from
Corrections Corporation of America and the Department of Corrections to
discuss the state's proposed takeover of the medical care from CCA.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, pressed
for the delay, despite a plea from Dr. Ted D'Amico, medical director for the
Department of Corrections, to approve a shift in medical care by March 1. The
subcommittee will report back to IFC in March. The state has been
paying CCA, which operates the women's prison, $47.79 per day per inmate. The
prison currently has 452 inmates. Under the proposed contract change, the
cost would drop to $33.08 per day, with the state assuming the medical
care. D'Amico said the difference in payments would more than cover the
state's costs for providing medical and mental health care for the inmates.
He also said the women inmates at the North Las Vegas prison get substandard
care and could sue if the care doesn't improve. CCA officials said they
wanted out of the prison contract unless the state takes over the medical
care because they've been losing money running the women's prison. (AP)

January 9, 2004A Nevada
inmate who became pregnant at a women's prison in North Las Vegas has sued a
guard who allegedly impregnated her, the state Corrections Department, Gov. Kenny
Guinn and Correction Corp. of America which runs the prison.The U.S.
District Court suit filed by Korina Martin, due to
deliver her baby in late January, names Randy Easter as the father. Easter
was fired from the prison after the pregnancy was discovered.According
to the lawsuit, filed by Las Vegas attorney Scott Olifant,
sex between Martin and Easter took place at the Southern Nevada Women's
Correctional Facility. The state pays CCA to run the prison.The suit
says guards hired by that company are less qualified and get less training
than guards at state prisons, and the lack of training led to violations of
Martin's constitutional rights.Howard Skolnik,
assistant director of the department of corrections who oversees the women's
prison, said Thursday training for guards at the women's prison equals that
of guards at the state prisons, except for firearms instruction.Besides
asking for unspecified general, special and special damages, the suit also
seeks to require the state to provide medical care to Martin and her child
until the youngster is 18 years old.The suit also
calls for an injunction to prevent the prison from removing the baby from
Martin when it is born. The state has a policy of separating a newborn child
from an incarcerated mother soon after birth, Olifant
said."We are not equipped to keep infants in the
institution," Skolnik said. "We can't
raise children in prison."After the pregnancy was discovered,
Martin was transferred to a prison in Carson City where she now confined.Prison
officials said a DNA test will be conducted when the baby is born to
determine the father, and criminal charges may be filed because it's a felony
for a prison staffer to have sex with an inmate.Easter
couldn't be reached immediately for comment. Donna Nolan, a spokeswoman for
Corrections Corporation of America, said the company had no comment on the
matter.Attorney General Brian Sandoval's office is
representing the prison department and Guinn. A spokesman for Sandoval said
the lawsuit will be opposed and the state would soon file an answer.Martin
was convicted of robbery and coercion in Clark County and was sentenced in
September 2001 to two to 10 years for robbery and consecutive one to four for
coercion. (AP)

September 19, 2003
A yearlong drug smuggling operation at the Southern Nevada Women's Prison in
North Las Vegas has been broken up with the arrest of a guard and another
woman, the state Department of Public Safety said Wednesday. The
department said it arrested Constance Edwards, 33, a correctional officer at
the prison, as she was trying to bring two balloons of heroin into the
center, which is managed by the private Corrections Corp. of America.
This was the second time in recent months a corrections officer at the prison
has been under suspicion. A female prison inmate became pregnant during the
summer and identified a corrections officer as the father. The case is still
under investigation and no charges have been filed. The staff member
resigned. In the drug smuggling case, Corrections Corp. officials
notified the state Department of Corrections, which began looking into the
allegation with the state Division of Investigations a month ago. The
department said inmate Valerie Moore was receiving heroin and cocaine from Edwards,
who was getting the drugs from former inmate Karen Matthews. According
to investigators, Matthews arranged to supply the drugs to Edwards, who would
then get them into the prison and provide them to Moore. Howard Skolnik, assistant director of the state Department of
Corrections, said the investigation is continuing whether Moore distributed
the drugs to other inmates. The department said Edwards, a prison
employee for about two years, received between $50 and $200 per delivery and
she was involved in the operation for a year. After the arrest,
investigators gained a search warrant for the home of Matthews, who also used
the name Karen Davis, on Jennydiane Drive near Lamb
Boulevard and Vegas Valley Drive, and they said they discovered evidence of
the conspiracy. Edwards and Matthews were charged with introducing a
controlled substance into a correctional center and conspiracy to distribute
a controlled substance. Edwards was also charged with possession of a
controlled substance. Moore will face disciplinary charges at the
prison for her alleged part in the operation. Moore, 44, is serving a life
term with the possibility of parole for a conviction of second-degree murder.
She has been in prison since June 1996 and is eligible for parole in June
2005. Lt. Matthew Alberto of the state Investigations Division is
continuing to try to determine whether other people in the prison were
involved in the smuggling. So far, he said, there is no evidence that
money was paid by inmates inside the prison to finance the drug trafficking.
He said Matthews "had another source of income to purchase the drugs for
the prison and for herself." Matthews has
an extensive criminal background and was a cellmate of Moore before Matthews
was released. Alberto said Matthews was in prison the last time for a drug
offense. Evidence seized at Matthews' residence included drug
paraphernalia and documents showing when the correctional officer got paid,
Alberto said. Skolnik said this was the first
case in a number of years of a correctional officer in Southern Nevada being
arrested for smuggling drugs into the prison. He said there have been more of
these incidents in Northern Nevada than in Clark County. (Las Vegas
Sun)

September 4, 2003
No more pregnancies were discovered among 535 female inmates in the state
prison who were tested for pregnancy after one convict reported that a prison
employee impregnated her, the state Department of Corrections announced
Tuesday. The inspector general's office is continuing its investigation
of possible sex between prisoners and staff throughout the system. The
testing began after an inmate at the women's prison in North Las Vegas was
found to be pregnant and she identified a correctional officer as the
father. The inmate, whose baby is due in January, was moved to the
prison medical center in Carson City. DNA testing will be done after the
birth to determine who the father is. The prison is operated by
Corrections Corp. of America, a private company under contract with the
state. Howard Skolnik, assistant director of
the department, said Corrections Corp. fully cooperated in the testing.
Sex between an inmate and a staff member is a felony. The staff member
accused of having sex with the inmate at the North Las Vegas prison has
resigned. About 750 women prisoners were given blood tests; those of
child-bearing age who had not had hysterectomies were tested. Scott Olifant, the attorney for the inmate who became pregnant,
could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He has said that a lawsuit will be
filed. The inmate pregnancy was the first in the state since 1975, Skolnik said. (Las Vegas Sun)

January 30, 2003
A new inmate transitional center, a programming division and staff cuts were
outlined Wednesday as lawmakers reviewed the Nevada Department of
Correction's $431 million budget. One of those shifts coincides with
the opening of the Casa Grande transitional center in Las Vegas. The facility, being constructed and operated by a
not-for-profit organization, would open this fall with 200 beds. Guinn
budgeted more than $2 million to pay for the contract. Another issue is
the possible expiration of a state contract with Corrections Corporation of
America to run the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional Center. Senate
Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, asked what
would happen if the company declined to renew its contract in the fall of
2004. "We are very capable of moving in and taking over that
facility immediately," Crawford responded. (AP)

September 30, 2002The Southern Nevada Women's Prison has
been run by Corrections Corp. of

America since opening in 1997.
But now the state, hoping to save money, is

looking for a better
deal.

Darrel J. Rexwinkel, deputy director
in charge of finances for the

Department

of
Corrections, said the state now pays $46.60 a day per inmate but wants a

lower rate.

RennyAshleman, an
attorney for Corrections Corp., has said his company

has

lost
money on the current deal - but intends to submit a new bid.

The women's prison is the only
full-service prison operated by a private

company in Nevada. The
contract for Corrections Corporation expires in

October

2004.
(AP)

January
2, 2002
Financial trouble has developed at the Southern Nevada Women's Correctional
Facility, which is run by a private company whose contract doesn't expire
until 2004. The state Department of Corrections has a three-year
contract with Corrections Corporation of America, which says it's losing
money on the prison in North Las Vegas that houses more than 500
inmates. RennyAshleman,
a Las Vegas lawyer representing CCA, said CCA welcomes the state's move to
look for additional operators, as it will probably confirm that it costs more
to run the prison than the state is now paying. News accounts say CCA
may have lost about $1.5 million on medical treatment alone. The state
had a lease-option to buy the prison after 20 years, but it purchased the
center in August for $24.1 million. Because of IRS rules, the CCA
contract had to be trimmed after the purchase from 20 years to three years,
with an automatic renewal if both sides agree. (AP)

Storey County, Nevada
CCA
January 8, 2009 Nevada Appeal
An industrial park in Storey County is preparing land and paperwork for a
private prison. The Tahoe Reno Industrial Center will seek a zoning change on
about 550 acres of the park, according to its broker, Lance Gilman.
Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America, the largest
private prison company in the country, has said the 107,000-acre industrial
park that takes up over half of Storey County is one the places it is
considering for a new private prison. It would hold up to 3,000 inmates and
employ about 600 workers, according to the company. The Storey County
Planning Commission will not consider a permit for a private prison at its
Jan. 15 meeting as was tentatively scheduled, according to the planning
department. The item was taken off the agenda because an application for the
permit was not finished. Gilman said the industrial park is a great place for
a private prison. It is home to large distribution centers for Walmart and others and has an open 160 square miles.
“Don’t you think I can find a really nice canyon or meadow that won’t
interfere with anyone?” he said. “Hell, yes, I can.” Gilman said he can’t say
anything about Corrections Corp. under an agreement with the company, but the
industrial park will be ready for a private prison as soon as possible. The
Corrections Corp. prison would be built in two phases on the southeast side
of the industrial park near the corner of Portofino and Malta drives,
according to paperwork filed with Storey County by the industrial park. The
buildings will be less than 35 feet tall and “similar in scale and appearance
to a light industrial park or secondary school,” according to the county
records. A minimum 100-foot buffer zone would surround the patrolled prison
along with double 12-foot security fences, records say. Corrections Corp.
would get inmates through a state or federal contract, said Louise Grant, a
company representative. The company has no contract and no definite schedule
to start building the prison, however, she said. Corrections Corp. managed
the Southern Nevada Women’s Correctional Facility in North Las Vegas from
1997 to 2004. It was the first private company to manage a Nevada prison. The
company did not renew a contract to continue managing the prison, saying
medical care and other costs made it too expensive. Nye County in December
approved a federal detention center that the company will build and run in
Pahrump. Some residents and the Florida-based Private Corrections Institute
criticized the plan during the company’s two-year negotiations with the
county. Frank Smith of the institute said in an e-mail that the detention
center will lack oversight and hurt Nye County. But the project is supported
by the county government and the “vast majority” of residents, according to
Grant. She said the institute rallied a few people to spread “misinformation”
about the company.

Summit View Youth
Correctional FacilityLas Vegas, Nevada
Correctional Services Corporation
January 27, 2004
A youth corrections facility where inmates staged a rooftop revolt two years
ago when the place was privately run was expected to reopen today under state
control, officials said. Summit View Youth Correctional Center closed
in March 2002 after numerous complaints about suicide attempts, escapes,
unchecked drug use and sexual and physical abuse of inmates by guards. Those
problems came to light after 20 inmates, fed up with the prison conditions,
took to the rooftop of the facility and had a 90-minute standoff with
police. Now under the control of the state, Summit View will become a
place where the young prisoners can be properly rehabilitated because the
facility has better staff that is prepared to deal with their charges, newly
appointed Summit View Superintendent Robert McLellan
said. (Las Vegas Sun)

January 23, 2004
Pizza parties. Movie nights. Staff who smoke weed
with inmates and ignore tips about riots. And blow jobs. Blow jobs!
What disrespecting, young male scofflaw wouldn't beat down a warden's door to
serve time in this teenage Club Fed? Juxtaposed against Summit View
Youth Correctional Center's ascetic veneer—a fortress of steel and thick
brick circled by barbed wire; to the north lies restricted Nellis Air Force Base land—is the reality of its past:
Inmates, with the help of complicit staff, ran the asylum. And not just any
inmates—Nevada's most violent and dangerous male juveniles. Three years ago,
19 of them led a rooftop uprising that trained global attention on the
privately-run, 96-bed facility in a cul-de-sac in a desert patch of northeast
North Las Vegas. Months of feverish work by state officials to close
wide-ranging gaps in Youth Services International's program, from tracking
allegations of mistreatment to escape procedures to staff training, the
Florida-based company opted out of its $4.3 million annual contract in
September 2001, closing the facility and displacing an already hard-to-place
population. Two months later, before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure,
Gloria Kim—one of two female employees given probation for performing oral
sex on inmates—explained why so much went unchecked at Summit View: "It
was poorly run." On Monday, the prison is slated to reopen. This time,
under state rule (all state juvenile correctional centers are under the
auspices of the state Department of Human Resources' Division of Child and
Family Services). At the helm will be Superintendent Robert McLellan, tapped from the Montana Department of
Corrections, who's indicated he'll not use the past as a guide. He neither
knows much about the riots and oral sex, nor does he care. "I'm
not familiar with what occurred down to the details," says McLellan. Prior to becoming assistant superintendent at
the Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility in Miles City, Montana, he worked
in enforcement. "This is an entire new operation. It'll be completely
different." The first 24 inmates are scheduled to arrive on
Monday, with the facility expected to be fully operational, all 96 beds
filled and 86 staffers hired, by year's end. Big Difference No. 1
between YSI and McLellan: Under YSI, employees
routinely took on assignments without being properly trained. McLellan's workforce will undergo 160 to 170 hours of
instruction set to American Correctional Association Standards. "You
absolutely have to screen and hire the best staff to supervise the
youth." Big Difference No. 2: Inmates' entire days will be
structured, from wake-up to bedtime, chow time to exercise—the facility's central
portion has soccer fields, volleyball and basketball courts and a gym.
Also in place will be a "cognitive behavioral restructuring model."
It delineates levels of behavior and rewards inmates for obeying rules. Via
the Clark County School District, inmates can take continuing education
courses, vocational and GED classes or, McLellan
says, sign up for life-skills programs. McLellan
is in the process of identifying the inmates; there's no plan to accept youth
from other states. The typical stay will range from nine to 12 months. Given
the caliber of his future clientele—chronic offenders (they've committed
large number of crimes), serious offenders convicted of assault, weapons and
drug-related crimes) and parole violators—McLellan
doesn't expect a trouble-free ride. "Every juvenile facility has
the potential to have problems. We have already planned for a variety of
things," he notes, neglecting to say if that includes weed-smoking
parties between inmates and staff and the occasional act of oral sex meant to
deflate an unruly prisoner. "We're prepared for problems if they do
happen." (Scope mag.com)

January 5, 2004
After being closed for nearly two years, the state-owned Summit View male
juvenile detention center in North Las Vegas will be reopened Jan. 26 and
will take in 24 boys the first week. "We intend to keep (the
inmates) engaged and busy," newly hired superintendent Robert W. McLellan said. "There will be little unstructured
time." From 6:15 a.m. until lights-out at 10 p.m. there will be
schooling and a variety of programs with only a minimum of free time, he
said. Classes at the facility will begin Jan. 29. The $14
million, 96-bed center originally opened in June 2000 with Correctional
Services Corp. hired by the state to operate the facility. But there were
problems, including escapes and sex between female staff and inmates. The
private company pulled out of the contract in January 2002, complaining it
could not make money. Except for a maintenance staff, Summit View has been
vacant since March 2002. The 2003 Legislature approved the
recommendation of Gov. Kenny Guinn that Summit View should be run by the
state, rather than a private company. State Human Resources Director
Mike Willden said the first group of inmates will
come from county juvenile facilities, mostly in Clark County. He said Nevada
delinquents placed in out-of-state facilities would not be brought back
immediately unless their treatment programs are completed. McLellan, who comes from Montana, has hired Audrey
Fetters from Washington state as his assistant superintendent. McLellan is a former chief of police in two cities in
Montana, a deputy sheriff in Colorado and was deputy director of care and
custody of Pine Hills Youth Correction Facility in Miles City, Mont., before
taking the Nevada job. Before coming to Nevada, Fetters was juvenile
court administrator and administrator of the juvenile detention center in
Yakima, Wash. She has a background in clinical social work. The typical
length of stay for a juvenile at the facility is expected to be nine to 12
months, though chronic offenders may stay longer, McLellan
said. Inmates can be held at the facility until they turn 20. The
center has an authorized staff of 85 and McLellan
said he will have 44 on board when it opens next month. The staff will be
augmented as more youths are accepted. Willden
said he intends to follow the guidelines of the American Corrections
Association, which call for one staff member for every eight inmates during
the day and a 1-16 ratio at night. The Clark County School District
will provide the schooling. Willden said the state
has hired nurses, mental health counselors, security staff, cooks and
others. Reveille is planned for 6:15 a.m. for the inmates, who will do
calisthenics, shower and clean their individual rooms before going to
breakfast. School starts at 8:50 a.m. and goes until 11:30 a.m. when there is
a break for lunch. The boys are back in class from 12:30 to 3:10 p.m.
After school there will be group sessions aimed at changing the behavior of
the inmates and recreation. McLellan said there
will be at least an hour of "large muscle exercise" that will
include such sports as football and soccer. The inmates will use a
gymnasium that has never been used. It was completed after the private
company pulled out and the center was put in mothballs. There will be a new
soccer field and weight room, Willden said.
After dinner the boys will have one to two hours of leisure time to write letters, work on their school courses or do other activities.
There will also be mental health counseling. A "wrap-up" session
will follow to allow inmates to talk about the day's activities. At 7
p.m. there are more group sessions for counseling on drug, alcohol and health
problems. And at 9 p.m. the juveniles are put in their rooms and the lights
are turned out at 10 p.m. Willden said the
inmates will be serious offenders, many of whom "flunked out of Elko and
Caliente," the other two state-operated training centers for
delinquents. Willden said Summit View
"gives us another tool" in the placement of youngsters but the
state may still contract with private companies for some. After closure in
2002, the state sent the youths to Rite of Passage in Northern Nevada or to a
facility in Tennessee. "This is high security -- high fences and
razor wire. And there will be lockdown," he said. Willden
said he doesn't want to see the security lapses that plagued the center when
a private company operated it. The facility is scheduled to be in full
operation by August 2004. Its budget for next fiscal year is $5.2
million. (Sun Capital Bureau)

December 5, 2002Gov. Kenny Guinn wants to reopen Summit
View Youth

Correctional Center, the prison for serious juvenile

offenders in North Las Vegas, with the state -- instead of a private
company

-- running it. Guinn said Tuesday he would include

money in his next budget to reopen the 96-bed center in July.

From the time Summit View opened in 2000
to its closure on Jan. 31, 2002, it

was run by Correctional
Services Corp. But that

private contractor pulled out,
complaining that the state never put enough

inmates in the
facility to enable it to make a profit. The

state had paid
Correctional Services $122 per day per inmate.

Guinn and state Human Resources Director
Mike Willden said the state can

operate
the center at a rate competitive with private

companies and
would provide better accountability. A state-run center would

be
a stable work environment for employees, who

must be trained to
handle violent youth, gang members and drug offenders,

state
officials said.

A number of problems were documented when Correctional Services
ran the

center, including escapes and sexual contact

between
female staff members and male inmates. There also were allegations

that
Correctional Services didn't hire qualified

guards and didn't
pay adequate wages, Willden said.

After Correctional Services announced it
would pull out, Guinn and Willden

proposed
the state reopen the facility. They estimated

the state could
run the center for $155 per day per inmate.

But the Legislative Interim Finance
Committee nixed that plan and told the

administration to find a
private contractor. In the

meantime, the inmates were placed in
other facilities at a cost of $113 to

$126 a day. Bids were
solicited and Securicor New

Century of Richmond, Va., was
selected as the operator. But before a

contract could be signed,
the state's budget crisis worsened.

Instead of going with Securicor, the
state decided to ship the inmates to

other places.

Willden said the bids from the two private
companies that sought the

contract ranged from $149 to $160 per
day for each inmate.

Guinn suggested the state's initial $155
per inmate estimate could be

knocked down to $145 or $150.
(Las Vegas SUN)

August
19, 2002The director of the state Department of
Human Resources says

he wasn't aware of allegations that a
Georgia

company that wants to operate the Summit View detention
center may have had

past problems in running similar youth
programs

in Florida.

But that doesn't mean the company will
lose the contract, said Mike Willden,

whose
department oversees Summit View near North

Las Vegas.

Willden said Monday that an evaluation
committee in the state Purchasing

Division, not his department,
issued the "intent to award"

the contract to Securicor
New Century.

Willden said he intends to meet this week with
the evaluation committee to

talk about the allegations. He said,
however, he doesn't

know if this will change the decision to go
forward with negotiations with

Securicor.

The real issues, Willden
said, are whether the problem at three youth

centers in Florida
were "pervasive and continuing" and if

there were no
efforts to correct the deficiencies.

Willden said every company that runs detention
centers for hard-core

juveniles has problems of "uprisings,
runaways and improper

relations" between staff and the
inmates.

Ernie Adler, attorney for Rite of Passage of Minden, which came
in second in

the bidding for the state contract, said the company

would file an appeal in the next week.

Adler said many of the problems that
occurred in Florida were similar to the

ones Summit View had
when it was operated by

Correctional Services Corp., which ended
its contract in January.

The $14 million Summit View, with 96
beds for serious male juvenile

offenders, opened in 2000 and
closed on Jan. 31.

Rite of Passage President Lawrence
Howell also complained that the company's

parent is based in
Great Britain.

William Florence, president of Diversified Business Vision of
Las Vegas, a

third company that submitted a bid, said Monday he

was also concerned how the bid was awarded.

State
Purchasing Officer Colleen Janes could not be
reached for comment on

whether the evaluation team knew about
the past

problems of Securicor, which runs three centers in
Florida for the state.

Securicor President Gail Browne said
there has been one escape in the past

year. That came at a
center where the least

restrictive inmates are allowed to go
into the nearby town.

She said in the three years Securicor
has been operating in Florida, there

have been two incidents of
improper sexual relationships

between staff and an inmate. In
one case the employee was fired within 24

hours and in the
second, the worker quit, Browne said. (The Las Vegas Sun)

June
20, 2002Nevada is looking again at leasing the
mothballed

state prison at Jean.

The state also has narrowed the list of
private bidders to reopen the Summit

View juvenile detention
center in southern Nevada

from three to two.

The $14 million center is a 96-bed
facility for serious male juvenile

offenders. It opened in 2000
and was run under contract by

Correctional Services Corp.

But after a number of problems,
including attempted escapes and sexual

contact between female
staff and inmates, the private

company ended its contract,
saying it was losing money. The facility closed

earlier this
year. (Las Vegas Sun)

November 26, 2001Lawmakers balked Monday at a Guinn
administration plan to have the state

take

over
Nevada's first privately run youth prison, where inmates took over a

rooftop
last summer.

The state Child and Family Services Division wanted a go-ahead
from the

Legislature's Interim Finance Committee to run the
Summit View Youth

Correctional Center, but failed to get a
majority of either the Assembly or

Senate members of the
panel.

The state decided to take over Summit View, subject
to IFC approval, after

Florida-based YSI recently decided to end
its $4.3 million annual contract

two

years
early.

Last summer, 20 inmates climbed onto a Summit View
rooftop and had an

hours-long standoff with police - on the
first anniversary of the prison's

opening. The inmates caused
more than $12,000 in damage before giving up.

In August, two former employees were
arrested on charges of having sex

with

two inmates,
ages 17 and 18. The women pleaded guilty and will likely

receive

probation when they are sentenced next month, prosecutors said.
(AP)

October 11, 2001
Gov. Kenny Guinn says plans for the state to operate the troubled Summit View
Youth Correction Center in North Las Vegas are moving ahead. But Guinn
said the center's current private operator, Youth Services International,
will first have to make some repairs before it pulls out. "They've
got to clean up the place and leave it like it was," Guinn said.
"It has not been taken care of." YSI in September gave six
months' notice that it was pulling out of the operation, which has had a
number of problems. (AP)

September 24, 2001
The private company that operates the youth prison where inmates took over a
rooftop in June is pulling out of its contract with the state - two years
before it expires. Youth Services International, which operates Summit
View Youth Correctional center, notified the state earlier this month that it
wants out of its $4.3 million annual contract. YSI officials said the
company is pulling out of Nevada because the prison never reached 95 percent
capacity and administrators had trouble hiring staff in Las Vegas' highly
competitive market. The facility's problems were revealed after 20
inmates escaped onto a rooftop and had an hours-long standoff with police on
the first anniversary of the prison's opening. In August, two former
employees were arrested on charges of having sex with two inmates, age 17 and
18. The women pleaded guilty and will likely receive probation when
they are sentenced next month, prosecutors said. The company pulled out
of a similar contract in Florida after problems surfaced and has been under
fire in Maryland after a state audit found problems at two YSI facilities
there. (AP)

June 26, 2001
Two teen-agers accused of trying to escape during a detention center
disturbance have agreed to plea bargains. They were among 20 teen
inmates accused of climbing onto the roof of the state-owned and privately run
Summit View Youth Correctional Center on June 1. (AP)

June 02, 2001
The uprising ended peacefully after about three hours, with the last two of
about 20 inmates surrendering to authorities on the roof of the
facility. Earlier, aerial video footage from a local news helicopter
showed about 20 young men on the roof of one building at the facility, some
carrying large pieces of wood and metal parts from air conditioning
ducts. Police and prison guards surrounded them on the ground in the
104-degree heat. Military police from nearby Nellis
Air Force Base were also on the property, aiding local authorities. The
13-acre, 96-bed facility, which opened one year ago today, houses male
juvenile offenders aged 13-18. It's the state's first secure juvenile
facility, built for chronic offenders, many of whom have been convicted of
felonies. The center was paid for by the state of Nevada, but is
operated by Youth Services International, a private company based in
Sarasota, Fla. (CNN.com)

June 01, 2001
Teen-age inmates surrendered Friday after a disturbance at a maximum security
youth correctional facility outside Las Vegas. Some of the inmates took
to a rooftop and could be seen brandishing sticks or clubs before the
standoff ended without further incident. The uprising by at least 15
teens came on the first anniversary of the opening of the Summit View Youth
Correctional Center, a privately managed 96-bed state prison for the most
serious teen-age offenders. (FOX News)